Every addition, renovation, and second story starts with the house you already have. Before we design anything, we scan your home with LiDAR and 360 degree photography, then turn that scan into an accurate 3D model and a complete set of existing conditions drawings.
This page walks through each step, what the technology does, and what you receive at the end.
Traditional field measuring means hours with a tape and a clipboard, and it still misses things. Walls are rarely perfectly square, floors slope, and ceiling heights change from room to room. Those small errors show up later as a cabinet that does not fit, a beam that runs into a duct, or a change order in the middle of construction.
Scanning captures the whole house at once, including the things nobody thought to measure. Your design starts from what is really there.
Basements, attics, stairs, and the exterior are captured in one visit, so we rarely need to come back.
Out-of-square walls, sloping floors, and uneven ceilings show up in the data instead of on the job site.
Architects, engineers, and your contractor all work from the same record of your home.
A walk-through 3D tour of your home as it was before the project, useful long after construction ends.
Here is what happens between the day we visit your home and the day your design begins.
A member of our team arrives with a Matterport Pro3 scanner mounted on a tripod. At each position the scanner rotates a full circle, sending out a LiDAR laser that measures the distance to every surface it can see, while also taking high resolution 360 degree photographs.
We move the scanner a few feet at a time through every room, hallway, stair, basement, and attic we can reach, and around the outside of the house. Each new position overlaps the last, so all of the scans link together into one continuous model of your home. Most houses take a few hours, and you are free to go about your day while we work.
LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. The scanner sends out pulses of laser light and times how long each one takes to bounce back. Because light travels at a known speed, that time tells us exactly how far away each surface is, many thousands of times per second.
Within a few days, the scans are processed into a Matterport digital twin: a photo-realistic 3D model of your home that you can walk through in any web browser or on your phone. You can move from room to room, look in every direction, view the whole house from above in dollhouse view, and switch to a floor plan view.
We share a private link with you, and it becomes a reference for everyone on the project. Our architects and engineers can revisit your home from their desks, check a detail, or take a measurement without scheduling another visit.
Click any two points in the tour to measure between them. It is a quick way to check whether a new sofa, island, or bed will fit.
Behind the photographs is the measurement data, called a point cloud. It is made of millions of individual points, and each point is a measured location on a wall, floor, ceiling, window frame, pipe, or beam. Seen together, the points form a 3D picture of your home built entirely from measurements.
We export the point cloud into our design software, where it becomes the template for everything we draw. Because every point is measured rather than estimated, we can see where walls lean, where floors dip, and how ceiling heights really change across the house.
Our team then builds a 3D model of your home in Autodesk Revit, the building information modeling software our architects and engineers use on every project, from single family additions to multistory buildings. We trace the walls, floors, roof, windows, doors, and stairs directly over the point cloud, so the model matches what is actually there.
A Revit model is more than a 3D picture. It is made of real building elements: a wall knows its thickness and height, a window knows its size, and a floor knows its level. That lets us design your project directly on top of your existing house and see exactly how the new work meets the old.
Our engineers use the same model to plan beams, headers, foundations, and mechanical routes, so structure and systems are designed around your real conditions from the start.
From the Revit model we produce a full set of existing conditions drawings: floor plans for every level, exterior elevations, building sections, and a roof plan, all dimensioned and noted with ceiling heights.
These drawings are the foundation of your project. Your new design is drawn on top of them, our engineers use them to size and locate structure, and the building department reviews your permit set against them. When the drawings match the house, the design fits the first time.
LiDAR measures surfaces it has a clear line of sight to. It is remarkably thorough, but it does not see through walls. Where hidden structure matters, such as removing a load-bearing wall, our engineers review the scan together with a site visit and, when needed, a small inspection opening.
Most homes take a few hours. Larger homes, multiple buildings, or detailed exterior work can take longer, and we will give you an estimate when we schedule the visit.
Someone needs to let us in and walk us through the areas to capture. After that you are free to go about your day. We will ask you to step out of each room while it is being scanned.
Your tour is private. We share it with you and the project team, and it is never published without your permission. We can also blur personal items before it is shared.
Yes. Contractors can use the tour and drawings to understand the house before they price the work, which leads to more accurate bids and fewer surprises.
No. We use it on additions, renovations, second stories, and new homes on existing lots. Any project that touches an existing house benefits from an accurate starting point.
Tell us about your project. We will walk your property with you, talk through your goals, and schedule the scan that starts your design on solid ground.