The reference library
This is the reference library for the people who buy scanning, not the people who sell it. Every guide is vendor-neutral, written by working operators, and grounded in real numbers: accuracy specs from named hardware, 2026 price ranges from actual quote history, and the failure patterns we see in the field. Read the buyer's guide first. The rest go deeper on the questions it raises.
The cornerstone
A single laser scan captures a place once at survey-grade accuracy. From that one dataset you derive 2D as-builts, Revit models at every level of development, incident maps, area exhibits, floor flatness heatmaps, fabrication geometry, and virtual walkthroughs, for years, without going back to the building. Read this first and the rest of the library falls into place.
Guide 1 · Start here
Reality capture is the umbrella term for any technique that digitally records the geometry and appearance of an existing built environment. The method you need depends on the accuracy your downstream workflow requires, not on which hardware a vendor happens to own.
Guide 2
A point cloud is millions of individual measurement points in 3D space, each carrying X, Y, Z coordinates, captured by a laser scanner. It is not a model. It is the measured evidence every as-built and BIM model is built from.
Guide 3
Scan-to-BIM laser-scans an existing building, then models the point cloud into a Revit model at a specified Level of Development, most commonly LOD 200, 300, or 350. The output is an as-built model your design team can work in.
Guide 4
The Matterport Pro3 is technically a LiDAR device, but at roughly 20 mm accuracy it is about 10 times less precise than survey-grade scanners. Walkthroughs are Matterport work. Measurements that feed design and construction are terrestrial LiDAR work.
Guide 5
A Matterport tour runs $350 to $2,000. A small commercial point cloud runs $3,000 to $8,000. A 50,000 sq ft office modeled to LOD 300 runs $25,000 to $80,000. Real 2026 ranges, with the line items behind them.
Guide 6
No. A scan produces the point cloud, the measured data. The Revit or CAD model is drawn from that cloud by a modeling team and is a separate service. Why buyers confuse the two, and how the scan and the model are quoted.
Safety and public buildings
Schools, campuses, and public buildings map their interiors so first responders can find any room in seconds. These three guides cover how the map is built, what the law requires, and which grants pay for it.
How it works
How the map is built and verified for first responders: gridded coordinate overlays, true-north orientation, aerial imagery, and labeled interiors, all from one laser scan.
The requirements
What the law asks for: Florida's Section 1013.13 mapping data program, the exact map specification, the yearly revision cycle, and the growing national picture of state mandates.
The funding
The grant programs that pay for mapping and security assessments: FEMA's Nonprofit Security Grant Program, state infrastructure and school mapping grants, and how to sequence them.
Objects and parts
A boat, a machine part, a propeller, a mold, a sculpture. When the original drawing is gone or never existed, the object itself becomes the drawing. These four guides cover what a scan actually hands you, how the capture works, the marine side, and what it costs.
What you get
A scan produces a point cloud and a mesh, not an editable CAD file. The honest difference between a watertight mesh and a parametric solid, what STL, OBJ, STEP, and IGES are each for, and why the reverse-engineering labor is the real product.
How it works
Structured light, metrology laser, and photogrammetry compared. Measured accuracy versus derived accuracy, what microns and thousandths mean, the standards that govern it, and the full scan-to-deliverable pipeline.
Boats and marine
Hull capture for refit and replication, lofting and fairing from scan data, why a hull never matches its original drawings, and custom fit for towers, canvas, and trailers, trailerable to shipyard scale.
The cost
The real price drivers: size, surface, accuracy, mesh versus parametric CAD, and inspection. Why the scan is cheap and the CAD rebuild is not, and exactly what information gets you a fast, real number.
Written from the field
These are real deliverables we produced from scan data: a dimensioned 2D as-built elevation, and a coordinated 3D model of the mechanical systems. This is the material behind every as-built and BIM deliverable described in this library.
The deliverables behind that work are public. Open the as-built models in your browser, then walk a Matterport tour if you want the visual side. Every one of these is work we produced.
Describe the project and we'll spec it. Building type, square footage, what you need the data for. Plain words are fine; translating them into a spec is our job.
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