Pre-bid site surveys provide essential support for renovation and tenant improvement projects by documenting the as-built conditions on site. They enable architects and contractors to consider potential designs, revisit important details without returning to the site, and bid more precisely to improve their competitive advantage.
However, traditional survey methods are inefficient, low detail, and don’t record the full site context. This often leads to problems, like returning to the site or making incorrect estimates of project costs and timelines.
A new 3D documentation solution, CupixVista, is set to change the game. This article will explore how Vista streamlines pre-bid survey workflows while capturing more detail and coverage, and providing higher quality renovation surveys than ever before.
The challenges of traditional survey methods
Inefficient workflow
Before bidding, all interested architects are given a short period of time to visit the site, take measurements manually, and capture images with a camera or a phone. This documentation process is quite slow, since the methods are fully manual, and upwards of a dozen people may be on site simultaneously. A team of two architects may spend upwards of six hours documenting a single-family home.
Low detail and missing context
Many structures slated for renovation and improvement are large and complex, so small teams face problems capturing the full context on site. Though as-built drawings are often provided to give the architectural teams more detail, this documentation is often outdated or simply incorrect. The result is that architects often lack documentation about important details they need to make a strong bid.
Fragmented documentation
These traditional survey methods also present challenges for organization and accessibility. By the end of the documentation process, architects usually have a sheet with handwritten measurements and hundreds of photos with no metadata to show where they were captured on site. This presents challenges when architects want to locate a particular measurement or a photo (if it exists at all). The absence of a centralized, searchable repository also hampers coordination and decision-making.
Slow flow to BIM
When an architect returns to the office, they often produce a floor plan or BIM model to aid them in the bidding process. Without access to efficient software tools for importing traditional documentation directly into BIM software, teams often produce the drawings and models manually. The process is slow and painstaking, and involves educated guesswork, making it unlikely that any team can generate the same floor plan or BIM model twice.
Disruption on site
The site of the project is often a working building, or at least an occupied one. When an architect misses an important detail or measurement, they will often need to return to the site, disrupting the occupants in the process.
3D Documentation: Better Bids, Faster
Tools like Cupix Vista, which use 360° cameras to enable fast and detailed documentation, are changing the game. These tools produce as-builts that are reliable and complete, and offer the 3D “building blocks” for rapid production of 2D floor plans and 3D BIM models.
This empowers architectural teams to produce more precise and competitive bids to undercut the competition, and do it in significantly less time.
Effortless documentation
Cupix Vista uses off-the-shelf 360° cameras to produce on-site documentation. The process is straightforward: Simply walk through the site while capturing imagery, then upload the data to a cloud-based platform. Cupix Vista automatically generates an immersive 360° walkthrough and high-accuracy 3D maps.
This accessibility empowers architectural teams to delegate survey tasks efficiently, even to junior staff, without compromising data quality.
Intuitive organization and access
Cupix Vista offers customers a single platform for accessing accurate, comprehensive site imagery and measurements. Architects can now pull up the model and find the information they need instantly.
Accelerated workflows
A single person can capture a single-family home in as little as 20 minutes. This amounts to a 95% time savings compared to traditional methods, and a significant reduction in costs.
Reliable, full context documentation
Using a 360° camera empowers architects to capture every detail on site for full context documentation. Instead of stopping to snap a photograph or take a measurement, use the 360° camera to capture every nuance. The documentation will include full site context, including details such as architectural elements, wall colors and alignments, window placement, and anything architects may need to make a competitive bid.
High-detail capture
The CupixVista platform includes the VistaCapture smartphone app, which enables architects to supplement their comprehensive site documentation by capturing high-resolution smartphone photos and voice notes. Vista automatically pins these notes and photos to the correct location in the 3D model, making it simple to pull up a high-detail view of an architectural feature, machine, or other element on site.
Adding to the convenience, the app performs automatic text and voice recognition, which makes the images easily searchable.
Zero disruptions
Since CupixVista offers easy access to precise and reliable documentation, architectural teams won’t need to return to the site to capture details they missed. This eliminates disruptions on site during the bidding process, and happier clients.
Fast flow to BIM
CupixVista’s 3D models give architectural teams the building blocks to produce 2D floor plans and 3D BIM models rapidly. Simply slice the data set as needed and trace for fast, accurate, and repeatable models.
The Future of Pre-Design Site Surveys
For decades, architects have depended on slow methods like traditional photography and manual measurements to produce as-built documentation for bidding.
Accessible 3D documentation tools like Cupix Vista provide a significant upgrade to this workflow. By integrating real-world site data capture with intuitive digital platforms, they empower architects to work faster, reduce costs, and produce bids that land more jobs.
To learn more about CupixVista, visit www.cupixvista.com.
