Construction support
Scan to BIM in the USVI, at a stated LOD.
Registered point clouds and as-built Revit models of the building that exists, not the one the drawings describe. Delivered at an agreed level of development, tied to project coordinates, with the registration residuals and the modeling tolerance both stated rather than implied.
What this covers
From setup to signed-off model.
Six steps, each of which can be bought on its own. Plenty of projects need the cloud and nothing more; plenty need the model and will never open the cloud.
This is the page for renovation, retrofit, and coordination against an existing building. Where the subject is ground rather than structure, see drone survey or aerial mapping.
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Terrestrial laser scanning
Interior and exterior scanning with the Trimble SX12 scanning total station, which measures and surveys from the same setup — so the cloud arrives already on project control rather than needing to be fitted to it afterwards.
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Aerial capture where it helps
Roofs, upper facades, and anything a tripod cannot reach safely, captured from the air and registered into the same cloud. One dataset, not two that have to be reconciled later.
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Registration and control
Individual setups aligned into one coordinate system and tied to survey control, with the residuals measured and reported rather than assumed. This is where scan projects quietly go wrong.
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Point cloud deliverables
The registered cloud in the format your workflow needs — RCP for Revit and Navisworks, E57 to hand to a consultant on other software, LAS or LAZ where it feeds survey and site work.
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Revit modeling at stated LOD
Elements modeled from the cloud at LOD 200, 300, or 350, with the level agreed before modeling starts and stated on the deliverable rather than left to be inferred from how detailed it looks.
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Deviation and clash analysis
The as-built model compared against the design model or the drawings, with deviation reported where it exceeds the agreed tolerance. Finds the conflict while it is still a drawing problem.
Registration
Error accumulates.
Control is what stops it.
A scanner is extremely precise about the room it is standing in. The difficulty is never one setup; it is the fiftieth, and the fact that everything between them has to agree.
- Every registration carries a residual. Aligning two adjacent setups leaves a small disagreement. Align setup to setup down a corridor and those residuals chain, so the far end of a long building can drift measurably from the near end while every individual pair still looks excellent on screen.
- Cloud-to-cloud alignment alone will not catch it. The software reports how well neighbouring scans agree with each other, which is not the same as how well the whole dataset agrees with the building. A drifting model can post beautiful pairwise numbers throughout.
- We tie the cloud to surveyed control. Control points are established with the Trimble S7 or GNSS and the registration is constrained to them, so the dataset is held to measured geometry rather than being allowed to float on its own internal consistency.
- Closed loops, not open chains. Routing the survey so it returns on itself makes accumulated error visible as a misclosure that can be measured and distributed, instead of invisible and dumped at the far end.
- The residuals ship with the data. You get the registration report, not a verbal assurance that it registered cleanly.
What ships with the cloud
- Setups
- Count and layout of scan positions
- Method
- Target-based and cloud-to-cloud, constrained to surveyed control
- Residuals
- Mean and maximum, reported per registration
- Coordinate system
- The project’s own, in US survey feet
Level of development
LOD 200, 300, 350: what you actually get.
The single most expensive misunderstanding on a scan-to-BIM job is a model bought at one level and used as though it were the next one up. This is the whole ladder, including what each rung will not give you.
| Level | What is modeled | Rely on it for | It will not give you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud only | Nothing is modeled. You get the registered point cloud and take measurements off it directly. | Verifying a dimension, checking a clearance, or handing to your own BIM team to model. | Anything schedulable or scheduled. A cloud has no objects, so it has no quantities and no parameters. |
| LOD 200 | Generic placeholders at approximate size, shape, location, and orientation. | Feasibility, massing, space planning, and deciding whether a scheme fits at all. | Reliable clash detection, quantities you would price from, or any dimension you would order material against. |
| LOD 300 | Specific elements at measured size, shape, location, and orientation, modeled from the cloud. | Design documentation, permit drawings, quantities, and coordination between disciplines. | Supports, hangers, penetration sleeves, or connection detail. Those are not present at this level. |
| LOD 350 | Everything at LOD 300, plus the interfaces between systems: supports, connections, penetrations, and hangers. | Trade coordination and clash detection that will hold up on site. | Fabrication and assembly detail. That is LOD 400, and it is a different scope and a different price. |
Two practical notes. LOD is set per system, not per project: it is entirely normal and usually correct to take structure at LOD 300 and mechanical at LOD 350, because the coordination risk sits in the ceiling void rather than in the slab. And a model does not have to be uniform to be consistent — what matters is that the level is stated per system, so nobody reads detail into a part of the model that was never scoped to carry it.
Deliverables
Cloud, model, and the evidence for both.
Formats chosen by what opens them at your end, not by what our software exports most easily.
| Deliverable | Format | Opens in | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered point cloud | RCP / RCS | Revit, Navisworks, AutoCAD | Autodesk-native. This is what you attach in Revit and model against. |
| Exchange point cloud | E57 | Most scanning and BIM software | Vendor-neutral. Use this when handing the cloud to a consultant who is not on Autodesk. |
| Survey point cloud | LAS / LAZ | Civil 3D, CloudCompare, GIS | Where the cloud also has to feed site and terrain work. |
| As-built model | RVT | Revit | Modeled at the agreed LOD, in the Revit version your team is on. |
| Model exchange | IFC | Any IFC-capable BIM tool | For recipients not on Revit. Says what the model contains without requiring the authoring tool. |
| Deviation and clash | NWD + PDF | Navisworks, any PDF viewer | As-built against design, with deviation beyond the agreed tolerance called out and located. |
| Registration report | Any viewer | Setup count, method, and residuals. The evidence behind the cloud. |
Turnaround on a modeled deliverable is driven by floor area and level of development, not by the scanning, which is usually the shortest part of the job. The proposal states a modeling date separately from the scanning date so the programme is honest about which is the long pole.
Where the requirement is a dated visual record of the works rather than a dimensioned model, that is a 360° job walkthrough.
Where we work
Old buildings, altered repeatedly.
The territory’s existing stock is the reason this service sells here. Very little of it matches whatever drawings survive.
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St. Thomas
Historic masonry in Charlotte Amalie, much of it altered across a century without a record, and hillside structures where floor levels step in ways no drawing set ever captured cleanly.
Scanning on St. Thomas → -
St. Croix
Industrial and institutional buildings with long service runs and repeated fit-out cycles. The mechanical model is usually the reason the scan is commissioned, and the reason it pays.
Scanning on St. Croix → -
St. John
Villa and resort retrofit on constrained sites, where access for equipment is the binding constraint and the value of getting the survey right the first time is highest.
Scanning on St. John →
Questions we get
Before you scope the scan.
What LOD do I need?
Pick it from the decision the model has to support, not from a number somebody quoted you.
If the question is whether a scheme fits, LOD 200 is enough and anything more is money spent on detail nobody will read. If the model is the basis for design documentation, you need LOD 300, where every element is at its measured size and position. If trades are going to coordinate against it, you need LOD 350, because that is the level at which supports, hangers, and penetrations exist at all. Ordering LOD 350 for a feasibility study is the most common way to overspend on this service, and ordering LOD 300 for trade coordination is the most common way to under-buy it.
What Revit version do you deliver in?
The version your team is actually on. Tell us at scoping, because it has to be decided before modeling starts rather than after.
Revit upgrades forward but never downgrades. A model built in a newer release cannot be opened in an older one, and the workarounds all lose something. If your consultants are split across versions, the model is built in the oldest one in use and everyone else upgrades on open, which costs nothing.
How accurate is the model?
That is two questions, and conflating them is where scan-to-BIM projects go wrong.
The first is how accurately the registered point cloud represents the building — a function of the instrument, the number of setups, and how the registration was controlled. The second is how closely the modeled Revit geometry follows that cloud, which is a modeling tolerance and a commercial decision: a wall that is out of plumb by an inch over its height can be modeled as built or modeled plumb, and which one you want depends entirely on what you are going to do with it.
Both numbers are stated in the proposal and reported on delivery, separately. A vendor quoting one accuracy figure for a scan-to-BIM job has not thought about the second one.
Can you model MEP?
Yes, and on a retrofit it is usually the reason the scan is being paid for. It also comes with a limit worth stating before the survey rather than after.
A scanner records what it can see. Ductwork and pipework in an open ceiling scan well; a run inside a boxed bulkhead, above a hard lid, or behind a fixed panel does not appear in the cloud at all. Where access can be opened before we scan, we will tell you which panels matter. Where it cannot, the model states that the run is inferred rather than measured, and it is marked in the deliverable. What we will not do is model an invisible service confidently and let a coordination exercise proceed on it.
What if the building has no drawings?
That is the normal case in this territory, and it is the reason the service exists rather than a problem with it.
A scan does not need prior drawings; it measures what is standing. Older stock across the islands has frequently been altered several times without a record, so the drawings that do exist are often worse than none — they invite the assumption that the building matches them. What a scan cannot recover is anything concealed: reinforcement, foundations, and services inside closed construction are not visible to any scanner. Those need opening up, or an engineer’s assessment, and the model marks them as unmeasured rather than guessing.
Tell us about the site.
Send the island, the parcel, and what you need out the other end. We’ll come back with a scoped, fixed-fee proposal within one business day.