Polycam blog

Small AEC teams don't need $4,000-a-year mapping suites. Compare budget-friendly options from Polycam to free open-source photogrammetry.

A five-stage 3D scanning workflow that keeps architects from missing a crucial dimension, from capture planning to CAD and BIM handoff.

Turn a flat floor plan into a 3D home layout with an AI digitizer, a phone scan, or CAD. A beginner-friendly comparison of all three routes.

Mobile scanning and drone mapping each excel at different parts of a roof inspection. This guide shows when to use each method.

Full-stack drone mapping suites are overkill for most small AEC firms. Compare lighter tools that cover roofs, interiors, and floor plans.

Reflective surfaces confuse every 3D scanner. This guide covers the practical fixes, from matting sprays to capture technique.

Clear capture patterns for every scenario — interior rooms, multi-story stairwells, exterior facades, heritage sites, and stitching across sessions.

The four main reality capture methods — terrestrial LiDAR, mobile LiDAR, photogrammetry, and drone — what each does, and how firms build a stack around them.

Speed, cost, and workflow first, then an honest look at the accuracy numbers — and the specific projects where FARO Focus precision is worth the price over a phone.

A side-by-side look at Polycam and OpenSpace for construction reality capture — what each captures, how the workflows differ, and when to run them together.

Both start from the same 3D scan but deliver very different things. Here's how to tell whether your project needs a CAD drawing, a data-rich BIM model, or both.

How Polycam's DXF export opens directly in AutoCAD and saves as native DWG — plus how it compares to Matterport's CAD service and Scan2CAD.

The five-step path from a phone capture to a Revit-ready point cloud — scan, clean up, export, convert in ReCap, and link in Revit — with QA checks and family creation.

Capture patterns, lighting and site conditions, multi-scan sessions, and common mistakes for scanning the interiors, rough-in, and facades a phone handles best.

Why the field-to-office handoff slows most teams down, how to keep it fast, and each team member's role — walked through with a four-person GC team example.

How to document an existing building efficiently with a phone-based scan — what to include in the deliverable, scanning protocols by building type, and client packaging.

When a phone-based scan is the smarter choice and when the Leica BLK360's accuracy is worth the cost — a practical AEC comparison of speed, cost, and workflow.

Deciding what LOD a project really needs — and how a phone capture converted through Autodesk ReCap covers LOD 200 and most LOD 300 work at a fraction of the cost.

Turn a Polycam capture into a floor plan, a DXF file, or a point cloud ready for BIM — capture tips for MEP and a checklist for client handoff.

Define the deliverable, plan and run the capture, clean up the data, and hand off to a BIM or CAD team — a complete guide to digitizing an existing building.

How a phone with a LiDAR sensor produces a measurable 3D record of a building — interior and exterior workflows, app comparisons, and when a laser measure still wins.

A full workflow for documenting a manufacturing plant with a phone — from a single production line to a multi-site digital twin program, plus safety and CAD/BIM export.

A step-by-step modern site survey workflow — from pre-survey planning and on-site capture through cleanup, export, and handoff to Revit, Civil 3D, or CloudCompare.

OBJ, FBX, GLB/glTF, USDZ, STL, and PLY compared for 3D scan workflows — file size, animation, textures, AR readiness, and the best destination for each.

A breakdown of what each point cloud format actually stores — LAS, PLY, XYZ, PTS, DXF — and which one to reach for depending on where your data is going.

How Polycam's six-algorithm pipeline turns a quick phone scan into a clean, labeled, measurable floor plan — all processed on-device in seconds.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to export Polycam captures into Blender for cleanup, optimization, and refinement. This workflow covers importing GLTF files, understanding Blender viewports, transforming objects, optimizing meshes, and repairing geometry.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to export Polycam point clouds into CloudCompare for cleanup and optimization. This workflow covers converting LAS files with QGIS, importing point clouds, filtering noise, and cropping scan data. 

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to export Polycam scans into Meshlab for cleanup and optimization. This workflow covers scaling captures, simplifying UV maps, reducing polygon counts, and preparing meshes for editing, rendering, or 3D printing.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to export Polycam Gaussian splats into Unreal Engine for real-time rendering and interactive scenes. This workflow covers editing splats, importing them into Unreal Engine, setting up collisions, and creating cinematic camera movements.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to capture museum objects with Polycam and turn them into animated poster designs using Blender and After Effects. This workflow covers photo scanning, importing GLB files, cleaning meshes, and creating motion graphics compositions.

In this tutorial, you'll learn a multi-pass workflow for capturing extremely high-resolution interior scans using Polycam and photogrammetry techniques. This process covers room passes, overlap strategy, detail captures, and improving scan consistency for cleaner results.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use Polycam to capture as-built documentation directly from your phone. This workflow covers planning survey paths, scanning large spaces, generating floor plans, and exporting measurements and reports.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use Polycam to capture as-built documentation directly from your phone. This workflow covers planning survey paths, scanning large spaces, generating floor plans, and exporting measurements and reports.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to capture mechanical objects with Polycam using photogrammetry workflows. This process covers scanning small parts, large machinery, improving scan accuracy, and reprocessing captures as Gaussian splats.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to capture underwater 3D scans using Polycam and photogrammetry workflows. This process covers recording photos or video underwater, capture techniques, scaling scans, and uploading footage into Polycam.