As-Built Drawings Cost: Ranges and What Moves the Price
What as-built drawings from a laser scan cost, from $2,000 for a house to $12,000 and up for large buildings, and what moves the price inside the ranges.
Blog
Matterport Alternative for Project Documentation
Other 360 platforms make tours too. When the reason to look for a Matterport alternative is measurement, the alternative is a laser scan, or both on one visit.
Why Laser Scanning Has a Minimum Project Fee
Most of the work in a small laser scan does not depend on the area. What the minimum fee covers, when a small scan is worth it, and how to get more from it.
Scan-to-BIM for Manufacturing Plants
A plant is where the drawings are least likely to be right. What a laser scan records on a working floor, what it cannot, and what the model is used for.
Scan-to-CAD vs Scan-to-BIM: Which Deliverable Do You Need?
Drawings in DWG and PDF or a Revit model, both traced from the same point cloud. The choice depends on who opens the file after delivery. How to decide and what each costs.
Scan-to-BIM Price vs Value: Why a Cheap Model Can Cost More
A low scan-to-BIM price becomes a problem when the scope, the cloud check or a usable file is missing. What the price buys and how to read two far-apart quotes.
Scan-to-BIM Quote Checklist: What to Send Before Pricing
A scan-to-BIM quote is often delayed because "we need scan-to-BIM" was sent as a scope. The six items that decide the price and what to send about an existing cloud.
Scan-to-BIM Company vs Freelancer vs Offshore Team
All three can produce a Revit file. What separates them is who owns the cloud's registration, the check against the scan and the handoff. Where each fits.
Scan-to-BIM Companies: How to Compare Quotes on the Same Scope
Two companies can quote the same building far apart because they price different models. What to send every company, what to ask, and which answers show the scope is real.
Scan-to-Revit Workflow: Point Cloud to Model, Step by Step
The scan-to-Revit workflow in five steps: the scan, field registration, the link on shared coordinates, modeling at the named LOD, and the check against the cloud.
Laser Scanning for Roof Inspections: What the Scan Records
What a laser scan of a roof records: penetrations, curbs, drains, parapets and low spots as measured points. How the roof survey is done and what is drawn from it.
Historic Tax Credit Documentation: The Scan Before and After
The federal historic tax credit turns on a three-part record of the building as it stands, as proposed and as completed. Where a laser scan fits in that record and what the owner keeps.
3D Scanning for Historic Preservation and Restoration
Nothing in a historic building is plumb or square, and that is what a restoration has to reproduce. How a laser scan records it and how it relates to the NPS documentation standards.
3D Laser Scanning for Building Restoration After a Disaster
A damaged building has to be documented before it is cleared. How a laser scan records it from outside when it is unsafe, what the insurer and the engineer get, and how the restoration is built on it.
3D Laser Scanning Deliverables: What You Receive
A laser scan produces one thing, the registered point cloud with its report; drawings, a Revit model and a tour are built on it to order. What each deliverable contains and who needs it.
Can Lidar See Through Walls? What a Laser Scan Records
A laser scanner measures the first surface its beam hits. Why a point cloud looks like it sees through walls, what the beam does with glass and mirrors, and what finds the things inside a wall.
Reverse Engineering Turbine Blades from a 3D Scan
A worn blade is the only record of its design. How a turbine or compressor blade is scanned, how the airfoil sections are recovered as a CAD model, and what the shop gets.
How to Scan an Object into CAD: Scanner to STEP File
The scanner measures; a person builds the CAD model from it. How to scan a part or an installed object into CAD: scope, scanner, mesh, rebuild, check and export.
Scan-to-BIM for Ceilings and Plenums: LOD, RCP and Clash Checks
The plenum is a part of the building no drawing describes. How it is scanned through lifted tiles, what is modeled and at what LOD, and how new work is coordinated against it.
3D Laser Scanning for Structural Renovations: Columns, Slabs and Embeds
New steel is fabricated to drawings; the old structure was built to a tolerance. How a laser scan measures columns, slabs and embeds as they stand, and what the engineer gets.
Facade Laser Scanning for Glazing and Curtain Wall Replacement
A new curtain wall is fabricated to drawings and installed against a building that drifted from them. What a facade scan captures and what the fabricator gets from it.
What Are As-Built Drawings? As-Built vs Record vs Measured
The contractor's as-built, the architect's record drawing and the measured drawing are three documents under one name. What each shows, who makes it, and which one a renovation is drawn on.
How to Import a Point Cloud into Revit (and What a Revit Model From It Actually Includes)
Importing the cloud is the easy part. Whether it is usable in Revit is decided by registration, coordinates, and how the model scope was defined.
LOD 200 vs LOD 300 for Scan-to-BIM
LOD is a buying decision. The right level depends on what the Revit model needs to support after delivery.
Reverse Engineering Internal Features: Scan, Section or CT
A surface scan records what the laser reaches, nothing inside the part. Four ways to measure galleries, cores and bores, and when to order a CT scan from a lab.
Reverse Engineering Marine Propellers and Other Marine Machinery
How a propeller with no drawing is 3D scanned and rebuilt as a CAD model with a blade section table, what the foundry needs from it, and where the naval architect's work begins.
As-Built Drawings for Tenant Improvements
The landlord's base plan rarely matches a suite that has had three tenants. What a TI as-built set shows, how it is made from a laser scan, and what it costs.
Scan-to-BIM Cost: Typical Ranges and What the LOD Changes
Typical scan-to-BIM prices from recent projects: a house $2,000 to $4,500, an office floor $3,000 to $9,000, large buildings from $12,000, and how the LOD and the MEP scope move the number.
Existing Conditions Documentation for Renovation Projects
Renovation work gets harder when existing conditions are treated as a guess. The right documentation package depends on what the design team needs to decide.
Laser Scanning Site Prep Checklist
A scan day goes better when access, visibility, escorts, and deliverables are settled before the field team arrives.