Architectural firm cuts AutoCAD as-built modeling time by 50%, is able to accommodate 15% more business.

Architectural Firm cuts AutoCAD As-built Modeling Time by 50%, is Able to Accommodate 15% More Business

KUOP Designs is a Father/Son design team with over 30+ years of building design and construction experience. Juha Kuoppamaki started Kuoppamaki Drafting and Design in 1990 and continued the company till 2013 when Juha’s son, David, took over the business. The name was changed in 2013 to KUOP Designs and Juha and David still work together on residential and commercial projects. KUOP Designs completes approximately 100 residential and commercial construction projects per year. Their residential design projects range from $7,000-$10,000.

THE CHALLENGE

Complete projects on time and under budget by improving drafting efficiency and reducing return site visits

Business Owner David Kuoppamaki produces as-built documentation for each of his multi-story projects, which can often be difficult and time consuming for complex residential homes. Hand-drawn, manual floor plans often miss details or leave out building anomalies.

This results in return site visits on up to 33% of all multi-story job sites, and often causes expensive change orders, representing a 10% time and effort loss per project.

Thorough, manual property photography is tedious to capture and organize, and is usually still incomplete.

KEY OBJECTIVES AND CONSIDERATIONS

- ⅓ of multi-story or complex renovation projects require a return trip to site for remeasuring or inspection

- As-built drawing and manual documentation process for complex properties (above 2,000 sq ft) can take 6-8 hours

- LIDAR is cost-prohibitive for residential use ($2K+/day)

- Any as-built solution needs to be AutoCAD-friendly

THE SOLUTION

Use Matterport to reduce manual measurements by 80%, and speed the as-built drawing process by 2X with automated floor plans and visual reference

The Matterport Pro 3D Camera is a fast reality capture tool which can capture spatial and photographic data of a property in minutes. It requires no training and is only 10% the cost of traditional LIDAR, without the time-consuming and complex workflows. Thus, Kuoppamaki has used Matterport to cost-efficiently generate dimensionally accurate floor plans for import into AutoCAD.

Because the Pro Camera captures 2D photography aligned with 3D measurements, Kuoppamaki only needs to augment the measurements when very precise dimensions are necessary, as with windows or electrical components.

The Matterport scans are automatically registered and processed in the Matterport Cloud, and the finished model is imported into AutoCAD as a scale to begin drawing. Because the Matterport floor plan is dimensionally accurate, it can also be used to identify walls containing plumbing or other features via thickness. By navigating the immersive 3D Showcase, it is also easy to clarify unusual or complicated features, which otherwise could not have been captured at all.

Click here to see a video of his workflow.

THE RESULTS

KUOP Design increases project capacity by 15%, reduces change orders to zero

KUOP Design now completes Matterport scans for most of jobs, and all multi-story jobs. In several cases, having an accurate Matterport Space has revealed drawing inconsistencies which otherwise would have cost time and possibly caused a change order. Measurements for 30 and 45-degree angles and stairwells require fewer measurements, halving site visit time, and the risk of change orders has been almost completely eliminated via more accurate Matterport-based AutoCAD as-builts.

In one home, Kuoppamaki was able to immediately identify double plumbing walls from the Matterport model’s floor plan, saving him time he would have spent remeasuring. In another home, he was able to catch a strange, difficult to detect angular changes, preventing $500-1000 in future construction complications. Kuoppamaki is also able to provide the 3D walkthroughs to his contractors, who are then able to provide more accurate bids.

Kuoppamaki is also able to provide contractors with a more thorough project understanding during the bidding process.