Construction intelligence platform gains survey-grade reality capture, viewable alongside progress data and BIM
Buildots has added laser scanning to its construction intelligence platform through a partnership with reality-capture specialist NavVis, bringing survey-grade precision to the system for the first time.
The company is positioning the capability at mission-critical and mega-projects — data centres, semiconductor fabs and hospitals among them — where dimensional tolerances are tight and as-built accuracy has to be verified rather than assumed.
Buildots’ platform already builds a verified visual record of construction progress, largely from 360-degree imagery captured on site. Laser scanning adds a more precise layer on top of that record, giving teams survey-grade data to confirm dimensions, clearances and installation accuracy where it matters most, and to check for clashes between installed work and the model.
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Data can be captured using NavVis’s own hardware — the VLX wearable and MLX handheld mobile mapping systems — or any laser scanner that outputs the industry-standard E57 format. Rather than exporting to a separate tool, results are viewed inside Buildots through an integrated NavVis IVION viewer, so scans, progress data and BIM can be compared in a single environment.
“Construction intelligence is only as strong as the data feeding it,” said Roy Danon, CEO and co-founder of Buildots. “Adding laser scans brings a new, survey-grade data point into the platform, unifying it with progress and workforce data and enriching what our AI can analyse. That means teams know sooner when reality doesn’t match the model, and can act faster to resolve it.”
NavVis, which was recently reported to have raised an $85 million Series D round, says more than two billion square metres of industrial plants, construction sites and buildings are now held on its IVION platform.
Buildots says the capability is available to all customers now and is already in use on large-scale projects, including work within Intel’s semiconductor fab construction programme.
The integration continues a steady broadening of the Buildots platform beyond its original visual progress-tracking roots. The company has recently added superstructure tracking for the structural phase and folded the workforce-tracking technology from its Genda acquisition into a Buildots Field brand — part of a wider repositioning around the idea of “construction intelligence”.
