Occipital’s flagship app for Structure Sensor, Canvas, now supports Autodesk Revit, following a BIM workflow.
Canvas users can now choose Revit as an output format for Canvas’s Scan To CAD service. These files can then be imported directly into Revit as the as-is foundation for any renovation or redesign project.
Occipital, which specialises in mobile computer vision, says Canvas reduces the time that it takes to start a BIM-compatible project in Revit: a typical scan takes only a couple minutes per room, and within about 48 hours after submitting a scan, a user will have a design-ready, professional-grade Revit model.
Revit results from Canvas are targeted at a BIM Level of Development 200 specification, with as-is geometry properly organised into elements, layers, families, etc.
This not only allows for the files generated to be used as a “blank slate” for a project, but also takes advantage of many of Revit’s most powerful features such as construction-ready floor plans and elevations being updated automatically as the model is updated, and volumes, areas, and perimeters for an area being extracted in only a couple of clicks.
“Previously, when we had to measure spaces by hand, it was only really practical for us to show ideas in 2D,” says Clive Glover of UK-based Munro Acoustics, which designs recording studios. “Canvas allows us to produce a survey in much less time, and getting the model in Revit means we can go straight to 3D, and we are able to win more jobs as a result.”
3D scanning has long been used by professionals with Revit, but it typically requires expensive hardware and is time-consuming. This has traditionally kept 3D scanning out of reach for all but the most high-budget commercial projects.
“We used to start a project in SketchUp to define the design with the client, and then convert to Revit once we needed to generate construction drawings,” says Jasper Malcolmsen of Skylight, a renovation design platform and Canvas power user. “The combination of Canvas and Revit probably saves us 10 hours total on every project.”
“Canvas doesn’t make 3D completely automated or costless,” says Alex Schiff, product manager for Canvas. “But, as we’ve seen in the SketchUp community over the last two years, it does change the ROI equation, and it becomes practical to use 3D on a wider range of projects, with much smaller budgets. We think the impact we can have in the Revit community is even greater than what we’ve seen so far.”
