3D laser scanning for architecture

For a renovation set, a lease plan or a permit set, 2D drawings are usually enough and cheaper. If your team designs in Revit, ask for the model: you get the existing building as a base you can design in, and 2D sheets can still be cut from it. Both come from the same scan, so you can start with drawings and add the model later. See scan to BIM services for the model side.

LOD 200 for massing and layout at concept stage. LOD 300 for design development: walls, openings, structure and visible services at their real size and position. LOD 350 where things have to connect or clear each other, such as a fit-out around existing services. Higher than that is rarely worth paying for on an existing building. Our LOD guide goes through it with examples.

The point cloud is registered to ±3 mm typical (2–4 mm depending on range and setup). Drawings and models are built on that cloud and checked against it. Where a wall is out of square or a floor is not level, you see what is there, not what the original design said. The modelling tolerance is agreed in the scope.

Anything behind a finish or above a hard ceiling. We mark those areas as not visible rather than guess, and we will not fill them in from old drawings without telling you. If you need what is above the ceiling, open a few tiles for the scan and we capture it.

Three lines: the areas and sheets you need (or the LOD if you want a model), what the drawings are for, and whose template they go in. Add the date you need it. We turn that into a quote with the dates on it. Our scan-to-BIM RFP template has the wording.

Yes. Send your layer standard, title block and Revit template and we deliver in them, in the AutoCAD and Revit versions you run. If the project has survey control or shared coordinates, send them and the cloud, drawings and model are delivered on them. Otherwise we use a clean standard set and agree the sheet list with you first.

Yes. The scanner never touches the building. Façades are scanned from the ground, ornament and interiors from a tripod, and the cloud records every surface as it stands. We did this for a heritage seniors home on Sherbourne Street with no usable drawings. Our heritage documentation guide covers the standards.

Yes. Most of the offices, houses and public buildings we scan are in use. We work around people, and after hours or overnight when that suits the client better.

On-site capture for a house or a commercial floor is usually a day; larger buildings take longer. Drawings follow in one to three weeks, a Revit model in one to three as well, depending on size and LOD. We give you the dates with the quote and can send the point cloud early so you can start looking.

The size of the building, how much is in it, the number of sheets or the LOD, and whether it is drawings, a model or both. A single-floor lease plan and a LOD 300 model of a whole heritage building are very different jobs. Send the address and what the project is and we will scope it; our 3D laser scanning cost guide explains what moves the price.

Yes. We scan what was built and compare it with the design drawings or model: a grid line off, an opening the wrong size, a slab out of level. We did this for a steel-framed building in Mississauga, where three contractors needed one set of numbers.

Across Canada and the US; see the city pages above for coverage and the number to call. For a site somewhere else, send the address and we will tell you how we would get there.