Technology for As-Builts

[LeahOslin]

Hello! I’m wondering what people use to assist with capturing existing conditions. We are currently using Beacon Pro for exterior and Canvas for interior. Are there whole house scanners available that integrate with Chief? 

[RobDesLLC]

I use Canvas for interior and exterior, photo document the whole house, and then spend a few hours correcting the model I receive from Canvas.

[kylejmarsh]

I basically shoot like 10 measurements the first time I go out just to get an overall shape that I can mock up. That and a few pictures do the trick for the first set of concepts (why spend more time than I have to at that point) along with the county data which shows the basic footprint of the house. I just use that to get the concepts going.

 

Then once I have the client signed up for more than concepts (actual construction drawings) I'll go out, bring my computer with my rough chief model, and measure it up right there.

 

You just need to know what's important and what's not. I know how deep a cabinet is. I know what a 6' slider is. I don't need to know the size of the windows in that bedroom way over there that we're not touching. Etc. Etc. to get started anyway. 

 

Check your room dimensions, check your ceiling height, get some nice straight-on pictures of the walls in the room you're working in. If you can't come up with a concept that you like and that the client accepts why measure the whole house and burn a bunch of time?

 

As for tech, I've tried a bunch of stuff but most of it is more pain than it's worth. I mean, we already have chief architect, how much easier do you need it to get?

 

[Billis]

Hey! I used Matterport for a project last year, and it worked great for capturing entire houses. It also integrates with Chief Architect, which made the process smoother for me. 

[SHCanada2]

I do a lot of basement developments and sometimes I will need the main floor plan, and second floor just because the City sometimes asks.

 

For the basement I will just use a laser measure and draw in CA onsite to make sure everything lines up. It takes about 60 minutes

 

I'm looking for something that will be ok accurate for "the rest of the house" for a floor plan and does not charge by the sq foot. I saw polycam has a monthly fee.

 

Has anyone used a monthly subscription service, or God forbid someone who just sells the software to do a scan and provide a floor plan. I dont need bells or whistles, just the floor plan. I can do my own video.

 

Anyone used something with Android?

 

I'm willing to pay $1000 for HW if I can get the per plan fee down to about $50 or less. But the 0.20 cent per square foot that I saw for a couple software packages is too expensive, I might as well just laser measure it myself and pay myself $150 / hr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SHCanada2]

I tried cubicasa, as it works with Android or IOS. I assume it is more of a photgrammery engine than lidar as it can be used with android or maybe it uses both if they are available.

 

Anyway, it took me two tries on my test house. The first try it told me it didnt work at the end of scanning so that was good. The second try worked pretty good. I got back the 2d floor plan within 24 hours, most rooms were accurate to a few inches although one 5' hallway, they came up with 4'6. it took about 10 minutes to walk the 3 levels scanning

 

At only $10 for a 3 level house, I cannot complain, and since I do the basement accurately by laser and match it to the survey, this gives me an accurate enough plan for the top two floors.

 

Best bang for the buck I think

[Doug_N]

On 7/3/2024 at 12:39 PM, Billis said:

Hey! I used Matterport for a project last year, and it worked great for capturing entire houses. It also integrates with Chief Architect, which made the process smoother for me. 

How does it integrate with Chief Architect?  I am very interested and currently use Matterport Pro 2 camera.

[SHCanada2]

I also evaluated iguide as they can generale elevations and could generate door and window sizes (with a grain of salt).  They had a pretty good price package and the camera price was reasonable(~2k) when on sale. 

 

The only issue is in order to get an elevation one needs to be perpendicular to the building face. Here, where the houses are 4ft to the PL or less most of the time, it would not work for side elevations. If I have to build the CA model to get side elevations, I might as well build it to get front and rear elevations.

 

But it was very tempting.

[Doug_N]

I have just purchased an iMapper system. I currently use a Matterport Pro 2 camera, but lately the floor plans being issued are way out of whack.  

 

The iMapper is a lidar system that is accurate to 2mm over 30m.  I will let you all know how this works out my asbuilt work.

 

https://www.imapper.tech/

 

 

[tundra_dweller]

2 hours ago, Doug_N said:

I have just purchased an iMapper system. I currently use a Matterport Pro 2 camera, but lately the floor plans being issued are way out of whack.  

 

The iMapper is a lidar system that is accurate to 2mm over 30m.  I will let you all know how this works out my asbuilt work.

 

https://www.imapper.tech/

 

Very interesting, looking forward to hearing how it works for you.

It looks like U.S. pricing would be $5,000, plus 15% tariff fees, and then a $99/month software subscription. Not a fan of subscription fees to run expensive hardware so that would be a turn-off for me.

[SHCanada2]

5 hours ago, Doug_N said:

The iMapper is a lidar system that is accurate to 2mm over 30m.  I will let you all know how this works out my asbuilt work.

did you book a free demo?

 

I looked on their website and there are images of the 2d point cloud, but they all look wavy. I would expect if there was 2mm accuracy, the walls would be straighter.. It will be interesting to see how you make out. $99US per month is a bit pricey. I prefer per scan pricing. It would be also interesting to see how good their room "Stitching is". This is where I can always tell the accuracy of these things. If all the walls are a bunch of different thicknesses, then it is probably not correct.

 

bit of a weird website. if you click user guides, there looks to be a bunch of bitmaps under "Academy" I could not find an actual user guide

 

Edited 6 hours ago by SHCanada2

[SHCanada2]

@Doug_N Did you try polycam?