Scanning Best Practices for Site Plan: From those who have done a few.

General Discussions
#1

I have read the documentation for scanning site plans, and the recommendations for settings.

Today, I attempted a Site Plan on my house, adding it to the interior scans I did a few weeks ago. I started on the porch (connecting through the front door) to get some solid alignment data points, though as I moved down the porch stairs and out away from the house, I quickly got frustrated with the mis-alignments. The property is ¾ acres, but has fencing and such for the LiDAR to read easily.

I’ve done exterior scanning quite a bit: deck, porch, or around the exterior of the house. Typically, the scans align easily, using the building to match, with only minimal post alignment in Stitch.

For all the talk about the ability to do site plan scans quickly, I’m not seeing that result with the constant mis-alignment, or the possibility of having to do a lot of post alignment.

First question: what is your best practice for site plan scanning that reduces, or even better, eliminates scan mis-alignment? Or, do you do the best possible job in the field and reorganize the scans in Stitch?

Second Question: I attempted my scanning just as the sun dropped behind the trees, hoping to eliminate sun flairs. The images were flat, so that didn’t work. What is your concern about dealing with sun flairs?

Thank you.

#2

I’ve done a couple dozen now and some big ones. 26 acres being the largest.
I find that if you scan all the inside and one two outside each doorway then the exteriors have something better to align to. Turn off alignment alerts or you go crazy. I do my best to align each one as I go.

When there are multiple buildings or a sloping lot with multiple stories, ignore their advise to put it all on the main level. It makes it too hard to align and it can lag and crash with too many panos. I split it up by floor and building and then drag the exteriors after in stitch to the main floor. It is so much faster and easier.

As for sun flares I find if I point one lens at the sun and the other away. It works well, usually. If they are both 90degrees to the sun it will flare badly for sure.

Almost every single site plan bigger than a simple city lot has come back with errors or omissions and it will take an extra day two to get it sorted. Some have taken days or even over a week of back and forth to get right. That’s said they are getting faster and more accurate with each one. So thank you for the continued improvement iguide!

#3

Thank you for you valued input.

I began fresh today with better results. I started at the rear this time, where there is more building for the data points to cling. As i made my way around the yard, the scans mostly aligned, the ones that didn’t were easy to fix. Using an iPad helps.

A had some hazy cloud cover today, so the shadows were nice and soft. I did find the trick of pointing the lens at the sun to reduce flair. Thank your for reaffirming that. All in all I am very happy with the outcome.

I am guessing the errors and/or commissions are due to misaligned scans? I have done my best in Stitch to check all the scans, and will double check them before I submit.

Thank you for you input.

#4

While scanning outside for site plans and tour data, I have not yet had any alignment issues. I’m shooting residential real estate with an R1, uploading directly from my phone with no Stitch work. However, I have had two issues:

  1. Incorrect placement of scan sites. Shooting a 3+ acre waterfront property, I scanned a loop path that goes from the home to the shore and back. I scanned about every 20’. When the tour was first created many exterior scan locations were incorrectly placed on the tour. Several scan locations were in the ocean. It was clear that a robot had done this. Working with support, they reconfigured the scan locations to be better, but still not great. At least none were in the ocean, but several scan sites are on opposite sides of the property, so going sequentially from one scan site to the next you hop all over the property. I shot the scans in order and I know the scans are numbered, so I drew a path on the site plan with the direction that the scan locations should be going in the order that they were taken and asked support if drafters could use this map to place the sans in order along the path. Does not need to be the precise scan location, just in order so the tour follows a logical path. I was told that I could do this on Stitch or next time take the scans 5-10’ apart to ensure that they get placed in the correct order. Kind of a bummer. I guess I’ll scan closer together next time and hope this works to make a logical exterior tour. But that’s a LOT of scans.

  2. The scan halo icons are not visible in most exterior locations. It’s not like they are blending in with the image. They are not there. This makes tours a dead end when you exit the home. The only way that you can go to the next scan is to click on the scan/site plan map on the tour. This is no good at all, as the scan/site plan map is an interesting tool, but not intuitive at all. The average home buyer viewer will not know how to navigate around this map, or even that you can. It really needs to be the halos on the scan images that lead the viewer around the property. Support told me that the halos were not showing up outdoors because I was not scanning close enough. It really was not that far apart for some scans…max 15’ for a few. Do you really have to scan every 5-10’ to make an exterior tour make sense for the average tour viewer?

It’s also an issue that when you do many scans outside, the scan/site plan/floor plan map gets extremely small on the tour. The map is pretty much useless at this point when it’s that small because the average viewer is not going to know how to manipulate the map to zoom in. The little “arrow box” button that you have to click to be able to manipulate the map is not a known icon. Most people won’t know how to do this. The scan/site/floor plan maps should open at a standard scale that makes them readable, and then the viewer can manipulate from there if they care to. It seems this feature was designed for someone who is intimately familiar with the software, not the average home buyer, which is who all of this needs to be geared towards.

When I scanned outside, I was told by support to place exterior scans on the 1st floor. Later, the drafters created a “site plan” floor, and put the exterior scans on this floor. That seems to be more logical.

Great tech and generally fantastic support, overall. These are flaws for sure, but hopefully as my experience builds and iGuide continues to improve they will be ironed out.

#5

Imho a Planix R1 is an indoor device and for plan views only. I’ve done a few iguides outdoors because i only need radix files for “preconstruction assesment”. I don’t need any possibility to measure but only rough placements of the scans.
In an outdoor setting the horizontal lidar will move up and down a lot in relation to the inside of a building. When are no other structures around the main object and only some trees or hedges it becomes extremely difficult to align everything well.
If elevation plans are needed i think a real lasercanner will be needed instead of an iguide.
Have a look at this iguide i did last week so you can see the difficulties with the laser outdoors.
Tour

#6

This is really good, practical dialog relating to Site Plans and I’m glad you’re having it!

I wanted to chime in and do my best to answer some questions and provide clarity/coaching where I can. There is a bit here so I tried to keep it organized.

Alignment errors outside are expected, even with good overlap and solid structures nearby. Most of an exterior scan is variable surface for the lidar to read: vegetation, fencing, open ground. That produces lower confidence at alignment time, and confidence drops further as scan spacing grows.

Coaching for exterior capture

Do not try to scan a property in a grid. Reduce density and scan with intent.

  • Connect inside to outside through the doorways
  • Place a few scans around the building(s)
  • Add scans where you want a viewer to feel the outdoor space: a garden, a deck or a feature loop

I turn off alignment notifications but capture and align in the app to the best location I can. Our drafting team will take care of the rest for a high quality tour. Where exterior scan density is lower, our drafting team leans more on third-party data to render the Site Plan. Where you give us more scans, we represent more of the detail accurately. With larger lots and acreages, granular details aren’t represented in the Site Plan anyway and therefore you don’t need to go overkill or capture the complete property with your scans.

User navigation outside

For most Site Plans beyond a small residential lot, viewers get around through the iGUIDE mini map, not pano-to-pano halos. That is exactly why the mini map is part of the experience. A viewer can see the whole property at a glance and click straight to the spot they want. On a small property with clear sight lines, halos do the work. On a 3+ acre waterfront loop, the mini map is likely the best solution so you don’t unnecessarily over capture to make the click through experience work well.

Site Plans and architectural elevations are different deliverables

They have different capture rules. Elevations need vertical data, which lets us leverage the lidar in different directions and produce more precise drawings. If the goal is elevation work, the capture approach changes.

Happy to dig into any of this further if it would help and keep the feedback coming!