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Guides

Before you commission a drawing

The questions that decide which drawing you actually need. Written plainly, with the standards named, including the cases where the answer is work we do not do.

Which do you need?

As-built survey vs boundary survey

An as-built survey records what is physically built - walls, openings, levels and fixed features - and returns it as dimensioned drawings. A boundary survey establishes where your legal property lines run, and in North Carolina only a licensed surveyor may produce one. Most renovation, permitting and leasing work needs the first. Anything turning on a property line needs the second.

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Measurement standards

ANSI Z765 vs BOMA square footage

ANSI Z765 measures finished living area in single-family homes and is what listings and appraisals expect. BOMA standards measure commercial and multi-tenant space, separating usable from rentable area. They count different things on purpose, so the same building can carry two different, equally correct figures depending on which standard applies.

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Point cloud to deliverable

Scan-to-CAD vs Scan-to-BIM

Scan-to-CAD turns a laser-scanned point cloud into 2D and 3D CAD drawings - the layered DWG and PDF files that design and permitting work from. Scan-to-BIM builds an intelligent model whose elements know what they are, usually exchanged as IFC. The right choice depends on what your project's software and workflow actually consume, not on which sounds more advanced.

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The terms, untangled

What measured drawings are

Measured drawings record a building as it actually stands, produced from an on-site measurement rather than from old plans or assumptions. US practice also calls them as-built drawings or existing-conditions documentation - the same deliverable under different names: dimensioned floor plans, elevations and sections accurate enough to design, permit and lease from, delivered as CAD files.

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Just need a term explained? The glossary defines the language of measured buildings in a paragraph each.

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Know which drawing you need?

Send the property details and what the drawing has to prove. You will get a fixed quote with travel included.

“MeasuredPlan gave us a clear starting point for our renovation. The site visit was professional, communication was easy, and the final measured plans were simple to share with our contractor and design team.”
Residential client - North Carolina
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