Polycam blog

Dust creates false points and mud changes the surface you are measuring. Learn how to plan scans around site conditions, silica rules, and device protection.

Stairs are heavily regulated and hard to measure by hand. Learn what dimensions to capture, how to scan them, and where building code still demands a tape measure.

Stairwells are narrow, dark, and repetitive, so most scans fail the same five ways. This guide shows each mistake, why it happens, and how to avoid it.

AI floor plan tools turn hand sketches, PDFs, and phone scans into scaled base models. See how designers import verified room proportions into Canva, SketchUp, and Morpholio Board.

Field teams off-grid cannot wait on cloud processing. Compare Polycam, Scaniverse, and WebODM on offline capture, on-device processing, and storage.

Access to a heritage building is short, so you get one window to capture it. Learn how to choose the standard, plan sessions, and pair LiDAR with photogrammetry.

Emailing a point cloud across time zones costs a day for every misunderstanding. Share a cloud link and saved views so reviewers land on the exact spot.

Apartment as-builts need a measured floor plan for every unit, not millimeter precision. Compare phone LiDAR, Leica, Matterport, SLAM, and CubiCasa.

Documenting an occupied building is a scheduling and privacy problem, not a measuring one. Here is a phone-based protocol that keeps disruption to minutes.

Speed on a site visit is really about avoiding return trips. Compare Polycam, Scaniverse, Matterport Mobile, and Canvas on capture and processing speed.

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 typical site survey workflow begins with planning and finishes with a file ready for BIM or GIS. The tools used for this process have changed significantly in recent years. This guide walks you through each step: planning, on-site capture, real-time quality checks, cleanup, export, and moving a mobile scan into 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.

Point cloud exports are one of those things nobody really explains. You know your scan looks right, but LAS, PLY, XYZ, and PTS: the format you pick determines what survives the handoff to Revit, Civil 3D, or CloudCompare, and the differences aren't obvious until something's missing on the other end. This guide breaks down what each format actually stores 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.