As-Built Surveys in Novato, CA

Novato has an unusual amount of building stock that outlived its drawings. Hamilton Air Force Base closed in 1994, and the base-era hangars, shops, and administrative buildings that survived redevelopment have been re-partitioned, re-roofed, and re-served with new mechanical systems, often several times over. The light-industrial and office buildings around Bel Marin Keys and the Ignacio corridor date from a tilt-up era whose record sets, where they exist at all, describe a floor plan nobody has worked in for twenty years. Downtown, the older commercial buildings along Grant Avenue carry the usual mix of additions, mezzanines, and floors that are not quite level. In every case the design team's first real problem is that no one knows what is actually there.

A scan answers that in one visit. We set the scanner through the space and around the exterior, register the setups to survey control so the model sits correctly relative to the property and to grade, and come away with millions of points describing walls, columns, deck underside, roof structure, equipment, and openings as they exist rather than as they were drawn. High-bay interiors, exposed structure, and cluttered production floors are exactly where scanning pays: the geometry is captured whether or not anyone can reach it with a tape. Later questions about a beam depth, a slab slope, or a clear height get answered from the cloud instead of from another site visit.

Deliverables are the registered point cloud in E57 or RCP, dimensioned DWG/DXF floor plans, reflected ceiling plans, sections, and exterior elevations, and Revit models built to the level of development your team specifies. Pair it with site and boundary work when the project touches the exterior. See 3D scanning in Novato and our comparison of scan-to-BIM versus traditional as-builts.