2D as-built plans: floor plans, sections and elevations from the laser scan

The four states of the data

Between capture and finished plan set there are intermediate states, and each is a deliverable in its own right.

• Point cloud. The measurement result: millions of points with position and colour, as yet without interpretation.
• Section. The first step of interpretation: a plane through the building.
• Floor plan. Drawn from the capture, not traced from an old drawing.
• Model. Components instead of lines, when more is needed than the drawing: BIM as-built models.

A section shows what a floor plan cannot: clear heights, floor build-ups, roof pitch. Precisely the information that is rarely right in drawings from the time of construction, because it was decided while building and not while designing.

Who for and what for

Property management and operation. Drawings and a room book that can be imported directly into your CAFM system, with a test import before handover.

Designers and building in existing fabric. The basis for refurbishment and conversion: what deviates from the assumption by three centimetres in the existing building costs a multiple of the survey during construction. On request we carry on designing on this basis, up to the building application.

Developers and marketing. Dependable floor plans and living areas to the Living Space Ordinance for sale and letting, from the same capture as the design basis.

Listed buildings. Deformation-accurate as-built plans that show deformations instead of straightening them out. Often a precondition for heritage funding.

Why it pays off

Using old drawings is more expensive than it looks: the designer checks dimensions individually, orders on suspicion, and the first undetected error costs more than the whole new survey. A current as-built plan saves site visits and check measurements, design errors from false assumptions, wrong order quantities and wrong settlements.

That becomes particularly clear in serial refurbishment: for refurbishment with prefabricated elements funded under the German BEG and KfW schemes, the parts have to be made to measure. An element produced in the factory has to fit at the scaffold on the first attempt, and it only does so against the measured existing building.

When a drawing is not enough: the BIM as-built model

The 2D plan set answers the area and the geometry. A BIM as-built model can do more: components with attributes instead of lines, automatic quantity and volume take-off, clash detection with the services design, and the 2D drawings are already contained in it as a derivation. Anyone who can foresee designing or refurbishing is better off with the model, because the capture is the same.

The switch is possible later too: the point cloud remains, and the model can be ordered afterwards without a new site visit.

You already have a point cloud?

Then the capture can be omitted. You send us the point cloud in E57, LAS/LAZ or RCP/RCS, we check registration, completeness, point density and coordinate reference, and tell you what can be drawn from it and at what quality. Only then do you get a quotation.

We name one limit openly: we draw from your point cloud. For its accuracy and its agreement with the building we accept no warranty, because the capture was not ours. Recognisable gaps we mark as an assumption. If the data quality is not sufficient we say so before commissioning and state the effort for a re-capture.