360° documentation tools offer a way to record current conditions on the construction site, a crucial part of making effective decisions to bring projects in on time and under budget.

For many years, AEC companies had two options for documentation. They could use lidar, which captures an accurate immersive data set reflecting the site’s geometry – but is expensive and complex to use. 

Or they could use traditional 2D photography, which is more intuitive and cost effective – but captures only RGB documentation and no geometry. 

360° documentation solutions offer a middle option, making them a popular choice across the industry today. These solutions use consumer handheld 360° cameras and specialized processing software to generate immersive data sets. They are much more affordable and user-friendly than lidar and more powerful than 2D photography alone.

But not all 360° solutions are created equal, and selecting the right solution requires more than picking the right camera. It requires picking the right platform for getting the most value from your captures.

How can you sort through the platforms on the market to find the best one for you? Ask the following questions, and you’ll be on the right path.

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Can it generate 3D data?

Any 360° documentation solution will enable you to capture video from your camera, then process it to generate immersive views and map them to your floor plan. 

The limitation of these tools is that they process the video in only two dimensions. They extract the x and y axes, but not the z axis. That means they can’t produce a 3D data set that reflects the true geometry of the site.

A tool like Cupix can capture in full 3D. Then it uses AI to generate a 3D “dollhouse” view of the site. You can choose to interact with this data set directly, or use the 360° tour with knowledge that the 3D data is behind the scenes.

Why should you care?

Having 3D data offers you a lot more power and functionality back in the office. 

Let’s say you’re working on an MEP project: You can put your camera on a selfie stick and carry it around to capture all the duct work and pipe runs. Back in the office, you can pull up the 3D view and easily take measurements, compare the as-built to the BIM, make annotations at 3D locations and share 3D views with the rest of the project team..

The 3D environment enables you to comprehensively view the pipe runs,as opposed to simply navigating a 360° tour and “looking up”as you move around. You could use the same functionality to visualize the as-built conditions of the site from a bird’s-eye view to better understand any clashes before installation.

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Can you take measurements? How accurate are they?

Most 360° documentation tools will enable you to take measurements from your data. To measure the height of a pillar, for instance, click where it intersects with the floor, then the ceiling, and it will tell you the distance between those two points.

The problem, again, is that many of these 360° tools only extract two dimensions. That prevents them from generating a true 3D model of the site geometry. Since they use 2D photographs to triangulate the measurements, they are less accurate than measurements derived from true 3D geometry.

A tool like Cupix, which generates 3D data at the same time as the 360° immersive view, enables you to extract measurements from a true model of the site’s geometry. This makes the measurements faster, and accurate up to 99% when compared with a terrestrial laser scanner.

Why should you care?

Like cost, accuracy is a crucial consideration when buying a 360° documentation tool. It doesn’t matter that a tool is affordable if it can’t offer measurements that you can use to make better choices.

As an added benefit, a 3D capture can act as a kind of preliminary survey. To be clear, this 3D data set should not be used in the place of a high accuracy laser scan survey. But it can provide very comprehensive data which often is all that is needed for certain applications.

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Can you use smartphones to take photos during 360° capture?

For a long time, workers performing site documentation have used a clipboard and a smartphone. They walk into a room, take some measurements, check off some items on a list, snap a few pictures, take a few notes, and move on.

The best 360° capture tools on the market use this familiar workflow to add extra detail to site documentation. With Cupix, for example, users can pull out their smartphone with their free hand, capture a picture using the OmniNote feature in the Capture app and add a voice note. 

The tool automatically stitches the photo and note in 3D to the 360° tour in the location where it was captured. Users can tag and categorize them and the images and voice notes are transcribed and searchable as well.

Why should you care?

When documenting a site, it’s common to notice areas that require closer inspection or clarification. For example, you might see construction details, equipment models and serial numberstracking issues, defects, or other problems that a 360° tour or 3D model may not show.

If you integrate smartphone photos into your 360° captures, you can generate much more detailed and intuitive documentation. This makes it simple for any stakeholder to search for issues by text or access them from any view. The result is a much better understanding of the site, from wherever they are.

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How does the tool integrate with BIM software, VDC tools, and other software you use in house?

Many 360° tools can overlay 360° images onto the BIM or other model, enabling quick comparison between current site conditions and the detailed plan. But tools that produce 3D data can offer much more detailed information to compare against your model.

Why should you care?

Think about how you might use this integration to track progress. If you compare 360° images against your BIM, you can eyeball information to get a rough idea of how work is progressing.

If you use a tool that offers 3D data as well as 360° images, you can perform a much more detailed and accurate comparison. You can pinpoint deviations between actual construction and the design model, locate potential clashes, and improve communication across project phases.

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Can the tool support facility management and asset management?

Not just any 360° documentation tool can support your FM and asset management workflows. The feature set offered by the tool makes a big difference. 

Look for a tool that can generate 3D data, offers functionality for sharing that 3D data with annotations and links, and integrates with your other in-house software.

Why should you care?

If your 360° tool can do all of the above, and integrate with other tools that your teams use in-house, it can add significant value to your FM and asset management workflows.

When you capture relevant and detailed 3D data as the structure is being built, you are compiling a database of easy to access historical data, complete with detailed notes. This offers significant support for any future maintenance, upgrades, and regulatory compliance work.

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Does it compare different points in time?

You can think of each 360° tour or dollhouse view as a snapshot of the project at a specific date. When you capture more than one of these data sets, you’ve started to create an archive of snapshots. 

If your 360° documentation tool includes a comparison feature, you can compare the state of the project on different dates and isolate changes.

Why should you care?

This kind of “time travel” functionality makes it possible to track progress, identify changes, and verify progress against your schedule. You can answer questions like, Were the windows installed on the correct date? Is the concrete poured? Etc.

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Can it use AI to automate progress tracking?

A time-travel feature we identified above helps you to identify changes and track progress. But it still requires manual work – looking at specific spots where you want to identify changes, pulling up the pertinent documentation and the BIM model, and then making the comparison. 

Some tools can use artificial intelligence to do the work for you. 

Why should you care?

Manual progress tracking requires extra time and opens the possibility of human error. A tool that can automate progress tracking saves busy managers from an extra task and eliminates the possibility of mistakes.

A tool like Cupix uses AI to compare each captured 3D model against the BIM model and the project plan. Then it analyzes the data to identify progress and delays.

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Does it offer analytics and reporting? Can you build your own reports?

Every platform offers visual capture, but not every platform can analyze the data to generate insights and then organize them into a report.

Why should you care?

Reports enable project managers and other leaders to generate insight-rich reports on progress, delays, and deviations from the plan. The best tools on the market, like Cupix, enable you to organize these insights into custom reports. You can create visual reports for the progress of a system like MEP, charts to track issue management and defect management, and more.

These reports make it simple and fast to share and understand the health of your project, and make informed decisions quickly to keep work moving smoothly.

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How does the platform support remote and distributed teams?

Most 360° documentation tools offer remote collaboration functionality. This enables stakeholders to view the latest data, make decisions, and stay aligned on the project’s current status even when they aren’t present on site.

But using a platform with remote access is only the first step to empowering distributed teams to do their best work. It’s also important to ensure the platform is easy to use and offers the data stakeholders need to make good decisions.

Why should you care?

To resolve an issue while they’re not on site, your stakeholders may need access to photos, detailed notes, on-the-spot observations, progress tracking, and even detailed reports. They may benefit from using 3D views, which gives everyone the same frame of reference to discuss and resolve issues.

If a tool offers remote access, but not the right information, then they can’t use that tool to make good decisions.

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How does the platform leverage AI? How are humans involved?

Most 360° documentation tools on the market today include some implementation of AI. And virtually every tool still uses humans somewhere in the process to support the AI. 

Some 360° documentation tools don’t use AI at all, instead they send data to third-party processing companies that perform the work manually. Others use AI extensively, including humans in the process to check the work of the AI. Most tools are somewhere in the middle.

Why should you care?

It makes a big difference HOW the platform combines AI and the work of humans.

Cupix, for example, uses AI to transform the 360° video you capture into 3D data automatically. The AI automatically ensures that only high-quality images are used as the basis for the final dollhouse view and 360° tours you see. It also uses AI to perform progress tracking, as we discussed above.

Since AI will never be 100% perfect, humans are involved only to check the data sets and ensure that the work is up to standards. 

This is important for a few reasons. It means that the AI can scale up to perform extra work on larger projects without a time penalty.

Additionally, by bringing humans in to perform QA means they are correcting the work of the AI. Due to the way that machine learning algorithms work, the AI will essentially “learn” from these corrections and improve its work in the future – requiring even less correction, and providing even more speed and scalability.

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Wrapping Up

The surest way to choose the best tool for you is to pay attention to the details and ask followup questions. 

For example: If you know the platform can generate 360° views, ask whether it can also generate 3D data. If it can take measurements, ask how accurate they are. If it can do analytics, ask if it offers the insights you need. Can you make your own reports? Can you get alerts automatically? How do they use AI? And so on.

By running through questions like these, you will quickly get a sense for the true value offered by the 360° documentation tool, and whether it provides value to match the price.