Industry

As-built surveying

Capture what was actually built, not what was drawn. Interiors on foot, roofs and yards from the air, one registered model.

Commissioned in Melbourne
12-month warranty
Product setup support

This job

Capturing a building as it stands

An as-built survey records a structure as it was actually constructed, rather than as it was designed. Drawings drift from reality the moment the first variation goes through, and forty years of undocumented changes sit inside most existing buildings.

The deliverable is a measured record: a point cloud, a set of plans and sections extracted from it, or a model handed to a designer who has to work inside real geometry rather than assumed geometry.

What makes as-built capture difficult

Three things.

Access is partial. Occupied buildings, live tenancies, plant rooms behind locked doors, ceiling voids you can reach a scanner into but not a tripod. You capture what you can get to, in the window you are given.

Inside and outside are different capture problems. Interiors have no sky view, so there is nothing correcting position. Roofs, facades and yards are fastest from the air. The two halves have to end up in the same coordinate system or you have two surveys, not one.

The tolerance is set by what happens next. A cloud good enough for a feasibility study is not good enough for prefabricated joinery.

How the day actually runs

Walk the building first without the scanner. Note the loops you can close, the doors that will be locked, and the sections you will need control for.

Fly the exterior with RTK. Roofs, facades, hardstand, site boundary. That gives you real-world coordinates and a set of known points to bridge from.

Walk the interior in planned segments. Close loops at stairwells and corridors. Watch the live preview and fill gaps while you are still on the floor.

Tie the two together. With RTK on the exterior and control at the entries, the interior registers onto the same grid.

Verify before you leave. Check shots on anything with a stated tolerance, coverage checklist against the plan.

What to fly, what to walk

Part of the job	Capture with	Why
Roofs, gutters, plant decks	Matrice 4E	Fast, safe, no access equipment
Facades and elevations	Matrice 4E or SHARE C1 Pro	Aerial for tall, handheld for detail at ground level
Yards, hardstand, boundary	Matrice 4E	Open sky, RTK positioned
Interiors, stairwells, corridors	SHARE C1 or C1 Pro	No sky view, walk-through geometry
Plant rooms, risers, ceiling voids	SHARE C1	Tight access, light unit
Control and absolute coords	SHARE C1 Pro	AUSCORS NTRIP on the same walk

If the job is interiors only, the C1 finishes it. If the deliverable has to tie to a site datum, you need RTK somewhere in the workflow.

What you can defend in a report

Relative accuracy holds within about a centimetre on cloud thickness, which governs dimensions, clearances and geometry extraction. That is usually what an as-built deliverable is measured against.

Absolute accuracy depends on whether you georeferenced. A C1 with no RTK produces a geometrically correct model in its own frame. Tie it to a datum with control, or use a C1 Pro and let RTK do it.

Three different figures get quoted in this category: RTK positioning accuracy, point cloud absolute accuracy, and relative accuracy or cloud thickness. When you compare against a spec, use the absolute figure. When you compare two scanners, compare the same figure.

What gets handed over

Usually a registered point cloud in E57 or LAS, plus whatever gets extracted: floor plans, sections, elevations, or a model imported into Revit or ArchiCAD.

The recipient is normally an architect, engineer or building surveyor working in CAD or BIM, so format compatibility and a sensible coordinate system matter more than colour fidelity.

What gets a deliverable sent back: coverage gaps that were not flagged, a cloud that will not open in the client's software, and levels that do not tie to the site datum.

The common miss

A ceiling void nobody opened. A riser behind a locked door. A tenancy that was occupied on the day and never revisited.

Miss it and it stays missing. There is no post-processing fix for a room you did not walk into, and returning to an occupied building is rarely quick or cheap.

The other common one is capturing at a density that suited the first purpose and not the second. Clarify what the cloud is for before you decide how tightly to walk it.

Start with these

One or two kits that fit this job. Family pages cover the rest of the line.

SHARE C1 Pro

NTRIP RTK handheld. Absolute coords when you need them.

Dual 1" mechanical shutter
Built-in RTK
Sub 5 cm absolute

From$10,010 to $10,985

View kit

SHARE C1

Walk through. Walk out with a model.

Software and training included
Global shutter colour
Under 1 cm relative

From$7,758 to $9,858

View kit

Choosing a model

Do I need RTK for an as-built, or is relative accuracy enough?

It depends on what happens next. If the deliverable is a standalone model of one building, relative accuracy is enough and the C1 finishes the job. If the model has to tie to a site datum, combine with drone data, or sit alongside a legal survey, you need real-world coordinates and that means RTK or control. Buying the cheaper unit and adding control later is a valid path, but budget the control time.

Can I do the whole building with one scanner?

Interiors, yes. Roofs and tall facades, no. A handheld scanner captures what you can walk to, which excludes anything above head height on the outside of a building. Most as-built jobs on anything larger than a single storey end up flying the exterior and walking the interior, then registering the two. If the building is small and low, one scanner covers it.

Buying & price

Why not just hire a terrestrial scanner for the week?

If the job is one small building with good access and a millimetre tolerance, hiring a TLS is a reasonable call. Handheld SLAM wins on speed and completeness where there are many rooms, awkward access, or a tight occupancy window, because there are no setups and no target registration. If as-builts are a recurring line of work, the payback on owning a handheld is usually inside a handful of jobs.

Accuracy

Will this hold up if a builder disputes a dimension?

Relative accuracy within a centimetre on cloud thickness is defensible for most as-built purposes, and the cloud is a dated, verifiable record of the site on the day. Where a dimension is going to be contested, verify it with independent check measurements and note them. That is standard QA on any survey, not a limitation of the scanner.

Workflow & data

Will the cloud open in Revit or ArchiCAD?

Yes. Point clouds export in standard formats including E57, LAS, LAZ and PLY, which import into Revit, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD and the common point cloud tools. Processing runs in SHARE PointClouds Studio with no subscription. If your team works to a specific import workflow, we cover it during handover.

In the field

How long does a building take?

Walking pace, plus planning. A single-storey commercial fit-out is usually a morning including setup and checks. A multi-storey building with plant rooms and risers is a day or more, driven by access rather than capture speed. The realistic constraint is how quickly you can get into every space, not how fast the scanner records.

Next step

Too many options on the table?

Handheld SLAM, RTK rover, Matrice, dock, or payload — give us the job and we'll route you to the right kit without the upsell.