Every floor plan app can get you a sketch. The question is what your team can actually do with it. Can your drafter open the file without converting it first? Can the estimator pull square footage without re-measuring? Can anyone on the project access the scan without asking the person who captured it to email something? For most apps, the answer to all three is no. They're built to draw rooms, not to fit into how a professional team actually works.

For professionals, whether it's contractors, architects, designers, estimators, or realtors, the bar for a floor plan app isn't whether it can draw walls. It's whether the output is accurate enough to trust, editable before you leave the building, and exportable in a format that actually fits into the rest of your workflow.

That's a different standard than most apps are built to meet. Here's what separates the ones that do.

Why Your iPhone Is Now a Legitimate Field Tool

The reason professional floor plan capture is possible on a phone at all comes down to how far mobile scanning software has come.

Polycam's Space Mode captures spatial geometry in real time as you walk a space, detecting and mapping walls, windows, doors, fixtures, and furniture automatically without manual input. The output is accurate enough to use as a drafting baseline rather than just a visual reference, and it is available on compatible iPhone and iPad devices before you leave the building.

What a Professional-Grade Floor Plan App Actually Needs to Do

Not all floor plan apps are built for professional use. Most are built for homeowners rearranging furniture. The requirements are different.

A floor plan app that works in a professional context needs to do five things:

Capture accurately. The geometry has to reflect actual field conditions: wall positions, rough opening sizes, ceiling heights, fixture locations. If the scan introduces error, everything downstream inherits it.

Allow on-site editing. Mistakes caught in the field cost seconds. The same mistake caught at the desk costs a return trip. A professional-grade app lets you review dimensions, adjust walls, and correct openings before you walk out the door.

Export in formats your tools can use. A floor plan that only exports as a PDF or JPG is a picture, not a working file. Professionals need DXF for CAD import, layered geometry their drafters can work with, and flexibility to produce multiple outputs from a single capture.

Integrate with the tools your team already runs. AutoCAD, Revit, Procore, Excel. The floor plan app isn't the end of the workflow, it's the beginning. The output needs to move.

Support team workflows. The person who scans on-site isn't always the person who drafts. The app needs to support handoff: shared access, comments, organized project libraries, and not just single-user capture.

Most consumer apps meet the first requirement on a good day. Professional work needs all five.

How Polycam Handles Each of Those Requirements

Here's what the workflow actually looks like in practice.

Capture

Open Polycam, select Space Mode, and walk the space. The app automatically detects walls, windows, doors, fixtures, and furniture as you move. You don't mark anything manually. The geometry builds in real time. A typical room takes a few minutes. A full house or commercial floor plate takes longer, but the process is the same. You walk the space, let the app do the detection work.

Review and edit on-site

When the capture is complete, dimensions are immediately visible. You can edit wall thickness, adjust room labels, correct rough openings, and verify ceiling heights while you're still in the building. If something looks off, you fix it at the source, not three days later when a drafter flags it.

AI Spatial Report

Polycam automatically generates a spatial report from the scan and downloads it as a PDF. It includes room-by-room square footage, wall surface area, and a fixture inventory. For estimators, that's a direct input into Excel or Procore. For architects, it's an instant takeoff of existing conditions. Available for Space Mode and Floorplan Mode captures, it comes out of the same scan. You don't produce it separately.

Export

Choose the format the job requires. DXF for CAD import, layered, with walls, openings, fixtures, and room labels on separate named layers, importing directly into AutoCAD and Revit without conversion steps or cleanup. PDF or PNG for client handoffs. SVG for design tools. Polycam supports 15+ export formats in total, and the same scan can produce a layered DXF for your drafter, a PDF for your client, and a 3D model for your project record simultaneously. Everything exports directly from the app, no cloud upload required, no waiting.

Team sharing

On the Business plan, captures are stored in a shared team library with folder-level permissions, spatial comment threads, and built-in collaboration tools. The person who scanned the space doesn't have to be the only person with access to it. A field tech scans on Monday. The drafter has the file by Monday afternoon. That's the workflow.

JNR Architecture captured a full house in one hour using Polycam, compared to an estimated 16 hours of manual measurement for the same space. The time savings aren't in the scanning. They're in everything you no longer have to do after.

What the Export Actually Looks Like

Professionals evaluating a floor plan app will want to know what they're getting before they trust it on a real project. Here's what comes out of a Polycam scan.

The floor plan exports as a layered DXF with walls, openings, fixtures, and room labels on separate named layers. That file imports directly into AutoCAD and Revit without conversion steps or cleanup. The drafter gets a working geometric reference, not a flat image to trace over.

The same capture simultaneously produces a 3D spatial model, a full spatial record of the space that can be shared as a virtual walkthrough, used for design visualization, or revisited for measurements after the site visit.

The AI spatial report includes room-by-room square footage, wall surface area, and a fixture inventory. Drop it into Excel for a material takeoff or into Procore for project documentation.

Total export formats: 15+, including DXF, PDF, PNG, SVG, OBJ, FBX, LAS, and point cloud formats compatible with AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp, Blender, Rhino, and more.

One capture. Multiple usable outputs. Nothing to re-process or convert before it fits into your workflow.

Which Plan Do You Actually Need

For the professional workflows described in this article, the relevant plan is Business.

Floor plan generation, DXF export, advanced measurement tools, AI spatial reports, virtual walkthroughs, and team sharing are all Business-tier features. If you're using Polycam to produce CAD-ready floor plans, share captures across a project team, or generate spatial reports for estimating, that's Business.

Basic covers unlimited captures and a solid set of export formats, but not floor plans. Free is limited captures and GLTF export only. For any professional documentation workflow, Business is what you need.

The Business plan is $400 per year per user, or $34 per month. A 7-day free trial is available, and it includes full access to every Business feature. That's enough time to run it on a real project and see what it produces before committing.

Conclusion

The iPhone is a legitimate professional field tool. The software has caught up to make full use of it.

For floor plan capture, Polycam on Business does: accurate geometry, on-site editing before you leave the building, layered DXF that opens cleanly in AutoCAD, AI spatial reports for estimating, and team sharing that fits into how a real project team works.

No equipment to rent. No scanner to certify on. No return trip because the dimensions were off.

Try it free for 7 days at poly.cam/pricing.

Can I create a floor plan with my iPhone? Yes. Polycam's Space Mode captures spatial geometry in real time as you walk a space, automatically detecting and mapping walls, windows, doors, fixtures, and furniture without manual input. Floor plan generation is available on compatible iPhone and iPad devices, and the output is accurate enough to use as a drafting baseline rather than just a visual reference.

Does Polycam export to AutoCAD and Revit? Yes. The floor plan exports as a layered DXF with walls, openings, fixtures, and room labels on separate named layers. The file imports directly into AutoCAD and Revit without conversion steps or cleanup. Polycam supports 15+ export formats in total, including DXF, PDF, PNG, SVG, OBJ, FBX, LAS, and point cloud formats compatible with AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp, Blender, and Rhino.

What's the difference between Polycam Free, Basic, and Business? Free is limited captures and GLTF export only. Basic covers unlimited captures and a set of export formats but does not include floor plans. Business adds floor plan generation, DXF export, advanced measurement tools, AI spatial reports, virtual walkthroughs, and team sharing. For any professional documentation workflow, Business is the relevant plan.

How much does Polycam Business cost? Polycam Business is $400 per year per user, or $34 per month. A 7-day free trial is available and includes full access to every Business feature.