By hand in Revit
Link the point cloud into Revit, then draw each wall, floor, door and window over the points yourself. Full control, and the slowest of the three.
Works in your browser
Point Cloud to BIM Software That Does the Modeling
Upload your point cloud and the software models the building for you: walls, doors, windows, slabs and roofs, ready to open in Revit or any IFC tool.
- Nothing to Install
- E57, LAS, LAZ, PLY In
- RVT, IFC, DXF Out
$29 per scan · charged only on delivery
Your options
Three Ways to Turn a Point Cloud into a BIM Model
The three differ in who draws the elements: you, you with help from a plugin, or the software on its own.
With a plugin
A plugin running inside Revit proposes elements from the points; a person accepts, corrects and completes them. Quicker than drawing everything, yet still hours of work in Revit.
Automatically
Upload the scan; the AI models the whole building automatically. You review it against the points in your browser and download Revit and IFC files.
Would you rather not model at all? Our scan to BIM services page explains how you send the scan and get the finished model back.
Way 1
Modeling by Hand in Revit
The classic route: bring the point cloud into Revit, set up a level for each story, then trace walls, floors, openings and stairs over the points one element at a time. Every detail is your decision, and every detail costs time. Our blog article on point cloud to Revit walks through this manual workflow step by step, next to the automated one.
How much time? A 2024 study timed it on 12 existing buildings in Germany. Modeling them by hand in Revit took 413.5 hours for 3,495 m² of floor area (about 37,600 sq ft), roughly 8.5 m² per hour with data preparation included. Those models also contained furniture, which adds work.
The people who do this agree it is slow: in a 2021 survey of scan-to-BIM practice, 80.1% of the professionals asked said that modeling geometry from point clouds by hand is still a time-consuming step.
Source: Barthel, Becker & Wills (University of Applied Sciences Mittelhessen), EuroFM Research Symposium, London, 2024, pages 53–65 (413.5 h, 3,495 m²; m² per hour and sq ft computed)
Way 2
Scan to BIM Software and Revit Plugins
Semi-automatic scan to BIM software, such as a scan to BIM Revit plugin, proposes walls, floors and other elements from the points; a person then checks, fixes and completes what it suggests.
That help is real. In the same 2024 study, an AI plugin for Revit cut the modeling of the 12 buildings from 413.5 to about 253 hours, roughly 39% less time. A 2021 study in Automation in Construction also found semi-automatic modeling considerably faster than manual modeling, and called modeling the bottleneck that takes up most of a scan-to-BIM project.
Fully automatic programs exist as well, but the authors of a 2023 study write that architects generally don’t use them, because of poor performance and poor integration with their workflows. So before you pick a tool, check:
- which elements it models: walls only, or also openings, slabs, roofs and stairs;
- which program it needs, and whether that program runs on your computers;
- how you compare its result with the scan before you rely on it;
- how it is priced: per seat, per year or per project;
- which files you end up with: RVT, IFC, DXF.
Source: Barthel, Becker & Wills, EuroFM Research Symposium, 2024 (413.5 h by hand, about 252.85 h semi-automatic; percentage computed)
Source: Esnaashary Esfahani, Rausch, Sharif, Chen, Haas & Adey, Automation in Construction, volume 126, 2021
Source: Song et al., “A-Scan2BIM: Assistive Scan to Building Information Modeling”, BMVC 2023
Way 3
Automatic Point Cloud to BIM Model
ScanToBIM-CAD takes the third route. You send the whole point cloud, and the AI finds each story, follows every wall along the points, sets the openings into their walls and closes each story with its floor, ceiling and roof.
An email tells you when the model is done: normally a few hours after the upload, never more than 24 hours. You then look at it inside your own point cloud, in the browser, and decide whether to download. To follow one whole job on a real house, see our scan to BIM walkthrough.
The model
What the Software Models
Everything below comes from the points of your scan; nothing is filled in from a template.
| Levels | One per story, at the floor height found in the scan |
|---|---|
| Walls | Straight, angled or curved, each with its own measured thickness and height |
| Doors and windows | Set into their wall, with width, height and sill height taken from the scan |
| Floors and ceilings | A slab under every story and a ceiling above it, where the scan shows them |
| Roofs | Wherever the scanner captured the roof |
| Columns and stairs | Columns in halls and open-plan spaces, stairs that link the stories |
The Revit file holds the levels, walls, floors, doors and windows; the IFC holds the whole model. Furniture and building services such as pipes and ducts are left out: for those, a scan-to-BIM service is the better fit.
Accuracy
How Accurate Is It?
Each wall’s height and thickness, and each opening’s width, height and sill, is a measurement taken on the scan, not a default value. On a well-captured scan the model is accurate; complex geometry or noisy patches may need small corrections afterwards.
Think of the result as a 90% complete starting point that you finish, not as a survey: expect about 2–3 cm, which is fine for floor plans and as-built models but not for survey work. Before you download, you can check each element against the points it was drawn from.
Files
Point Cloud Formats In, BIM Formats Out
Point cloud in
- E57
- What Faro, Leica and Trimble scanner software exports
- LAS and LAZ
- The LiDAR exchange format; LAZ is its compressed form
- PLY
- ASCII or binary
- ReCap projects (RCP)
- Export them to E57 first
Big files are fine: scans above 20 GB have gone through. Unsure what to export? E57 vs LAS vs PLY compares the three.
BIM model out
- RVT
- A native Revit model; Revit 2024 or later opens it with its levels, walls, floors, doors and windows in place
- IFC
- The open BIM format: the whole building for ArchiCAD, Blender, Revit and other BIM programs
- DXF
- A 2D plan for every story, for AutoCAD (save it as DWG) or any CAD program
Pricing
$29 per Scan, Nothing to Install
There is no download and no plugin: you upload and check in your browser while the modeling runs on our servers, and you need Revit only to open the RVT, not to make it. Uploading a scan and looking at it cost nothing.
You order the model as you upload and pay $29 per scan, however many stories it has: your card is charged when the model is delivered, and not at all if the AI can't produce a reliable one. There are no seats, no yearly license and no subscription.
Upload Your Point Cloud
$29 per scan · charged only on delivery
FAQ
Point Cloud to BIM Software FAQ
Do I need Revit to use it?
No. The modeling happens online and you work in the browser. Revit 2024 or later is only needed to open the RVT you download; the IFC opens in ArchiCAD, Blender and other BIM programs too.
Is it a Revit plugin?
No. Nothing gets installed in Revit or on your computer. You upload the point cloud on our website and download a finished Revit file.
Which point cloud formats can I upload?
E57, LAS, LAZ and PLY. A ReCap project (RCP) has to be exported to E57 first.
What is in the BIM model?
Levels, walls, doors, windows, floors, ceilings, roofs, columns and stairs, all measured from your scan. Furniture, pipes and ducts are not modeled.
How long does the modeling take?
Most models are ready a few hours after the upload, and the limit is 24 hours. We send an email when yours is done.
Can I edit the model afterwards?
Yes. The RVT is an ordinary Revit model, so you edit it in Revit like any project of your own; the IFC can be edited in any BIM program that reads it.
What does the software cost?
$29 per scan, whatever the number of stories. Viewing your scan and the AI model of your first scan are free.
Try It on Your Own Point Cloud
Upload a scan, let the software model it, and pay only once the model is delivered.
Upload Your Point Cloud$29 per scan · charged only on delivery