Industrial reality capture / licensed & insuredServing New York, New Jersey & Connecticut (845) 280-5112
3DScanCraft
Tools & software

The kit behind
the measurement.

The scanners, positioning equipment, and software we run — and what each one is actually for.

Instruments are a means, not a pitch

Every reality capture company lists the same logos, which tells a buyer almost nothing. What matters is whether the instrument suits the geometry, the access, and the tolerance your project actually needs — a mobile mapper is the right answer for a campus walkthrough and the wrong answer for a pipe tie-in. Below is what we run and, more usefully, when we reach for it.

If you want the decision framework rather than the equipment list, the drone mapping vs laser scanning guide covers how we choose, and the point cloud file formats guide covers what comes out the other end.

Our preferred tools

Capture hardware and the positioning equipment that ties it to real-world coordinates.

FARO

FARO Technologies · Terrestrial laser scanners

FARO builds the phase-based terrestrial laser scanners that carry most of our interior capture work. The Focus family is light enough to move quickly through a plant, which matters when a scan plan calls for a hundred setups in a single shift. Range noise and ranging accuracy hold up well on the mid-range distances typical of warehouse bays and process units. On-board registration previews let the field crew confirm coverage before leaving site, rather than discovering a gap during office processing. Data exports cleanly to E57 and to the Autodesk formats our modeling teams work in.

Visit FARO Technologies

Leica Geosystems

Leica Geosystems (Hexagon) · Scanners, total stations & control

Leica Geosystems supplies the survey-grade instruments we lean on when a project needs tight control. Their RTC360 and BLK-series scanners combine fast acquisition with visual inertial registration, which keeps productivity high in congested spaces. Total stations from the same ecosystem let us set and check a control network that ties interior scans, drone imagery, and site survey into one coordinate system. Cyclone and Cyclone REGISTER 360 handle registration and produce the residual reporting we include in every QA package. For heritage and deformation work, the accuracy headroom of the Leica platform is what makes repeat-scan comparison defensible.

Visit Leica Geosystems (Hexagon)

NavVis

NavVis · Mobile mapping (SLAM)

NavVis makes the wearable mobile mapping systems we use when coverage matters more than millimetres. A SLAM-based walk through a large warehouse, campus corridor, or multi-storey building captures in hours what tripod scanning would take days to cover. The trade-off is honest: mobile mapping accuracy sits in the centimetre band rather than the millimetre band, so we scope it for layout, asset location, and orientation rather than fabrication. Panoramic imagery captured alongside the point cloud makes the dataset genuinely useful for facility teams doing remote walkdowns. Where a project needs both, we combine a NavVis walk for whole-building coverage with terrestrial scans in the zones that drive engineering decisions.

Visit NavVis

Matterport

Matterport · Virtual walkthroughs

Matterport produces the navigable virtual walkthroughs we deliver as an orientation layer, not as a survey product. Stakeholders who will never open CAD can move through a space, read equipment tags, and understand context before a site visit. It is genuinely useful for remote walkdowns, marketing, insurance records, and handover documentation. We are explicit about its limits: a walkthrough is not a substitute for a registered point cloud when dimensions feed design or fabrication. Our usual pattern is a Matterport tour published alongside the engineering deliverables, so each audience gets the format that suits them.

Visit Matterport

Trimble

Trimble · Positioning, GNSS & field control

Trimble equipment handles the positioning side of our work, which is what turns a scan into a survey. GNSS receivers establish ground control for drone mapping so orthomosaics and surface models land in real-world coordinates. Their field software keeps target coordinates, control notes, and check shots organised while the crew is still on site. The Trimble ecosystem interoperates well with Autodesk and Civil 3D workflows, which is where most of our site deliverables end up. For projects tied to state plane coordinates or an existing plant grid, this is the equipment that makes the tie defensible.

Visit Trimble

Our preferred software

Registration, modeling, analysis, and the visualization layer clients actually look at.

AutoCAD

Autodesk · 2D as-built drafting

AutoCAD is where our scan-to-CAD deliverables are produced and where most clients open them. Plans, sections, elevations, roof layouts, and equipment footprints are cut directly from the registered point cloud rather than traced from legacy prints. We build sheets to the client's layer standard, title block, and coordinate system so the drawings drop straight into an existing project set. For plant work, the Plant 3D toolset adds piping intelligence when the deliverable needs more than lines. DWG remains the most universally accepted exchange format in the industry, which is why it appears in almost every deliverable package we quote.

Visit Autodesk

Autodesk Revit

Autodesk · Scan-to-BIM modeling

Revit is our primary scan-to-BIM environment and the destination for most modeling scopes. Walls, structure, ducts, pipe, and equipment are modeled against the linked point cloud, so any element can be checked back to the measurement that produced it. We work to a documented modeling matrix — which systems, in which areas, down to which size threshold — usually at LOD 200 to 300. Deliverables ship as RVT with an IFC export for teams that are not standardised on Autodesk. Because the cloud stays linked in the file, your design team inherits both the model and the evidence behind it.

Visit Autodesk

Autodesk Maya

Autodesk · Mesh & visualization work

Maya handles the mesh-heavy work that sits outside a standard BIM deliverable. Scanned geometry that is organic, ornamental, or otherwise resistant to parametric modeling gets cleaned and retopologised here. It is the right tool for heritage ornament, sculptural façade elements, and equipment forms that no Revit family will ever represent honestly. Animation and camera work for stakeholder presentations are produced in the same environment. Output feeds visualization pipelines, including the real-time engines we use for walkthroughs.

Visit Autodesk

Rhinoceros

Robert McNeel & Associates · NURBS & freeform modeling

Rhino is our NURBS modeler for surfaces that need mathematical precision rather than mesh approximation. Curved façades, shells, tanks, ductwork transitions, and fabrication geometry are far easier to resolve here than in a BIM authoring tool. It handles large point clouds and imported meshes without the ceremony that heavier platforms demand. Rhino sits comfortably between survey data and fabrication, which makes it valuable on retrofit work where new steel meets old geometry. Files move onward to CAD, BIM, or CAM workflows depending on who receives the deliverable.

Visit Robert McNeel & Associates

ZBrush

Maxon · High-density mesh sculpting

ZBrush is the specialist tool for extremely dense scanned meshes. Where a decorative cornice or a corroded casting produces tens of millions of polygons, ZBrush handles the cleanup, decimation, and detail work that other applications choke on. It earns its place on heritage and restoration projects, where replication geometry has to preserve surface character rather than idealise it. Decimation Master gives us control over how much detail survives when a model has to be lightened for delivery. Outputs move to Rhino, Maya, or straight to a fabricator depending on what the project is producing.

Visit Maxon

Grasshopper

Robert McNeel & Associates · Visual scripting & automation

Grasshopper is the visual programming environment inside Rhino, and it is how we automate repetitive scan work. Deviation analysis, panel-by-panel façade comparison, and design-versus-as-built checks are scripted once and rerun across an entire building. It turns a point cloud into measurements at scale: thousands of clearance checks or panel offsets computed in a single definition rather than by hand. The same definitions produce the colour-mapped deviation drawings that make survey results legible to a non-technical reviewer. When a client needs an unusual analysis, Grasshopper is usually how we deliver it without inventing a bespoke pipeline.

Visit Robert McNeel & Associates

Unreal Engine

Epic Games · Real-time visualization

Unreal Engine is where scan data becomes something a stakeholder can walk through in real time. Point clouds and models are brought into an interactive environment for design review, training, and public consultation. It is particularly effective for showing a proposed retrofit inside the existing plant, at true scale, before anything is built. Nanite and Lumen let us keep dense scanned geometry without the aggressive simplification older visualization pipelines required. We treat it as a communication tool built on measured data — the engineering deliverables always remain the source of truth.

Visit Epic Games

Deliverables, not brand names

Nothing on this page changes what you receive. Scopes are written around the output — a registered point cloud, a drawing set, a model at an agreed LOD — and the instrument is chosen to meet it. If a cheaper method answers your question, we will say so.

All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners and are used here only to identify the equipment and software we work with. Use does not imply endorsement or affiliation.

Your next decision

Make the invisible
measurable.

Tell us what is inside, outside, and on the line. We will help you scope the capture and the handoff — in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut.

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