If you want to outsource the work to digitise building drawings, you probably look at the calendar first and the price second. With us, the turnaround depends on two things: the condition of the material you supply and the number of drafters we put on the set. The second of those we can adjust quickly.
We often start a project small and scale up per project with our large, variable team whenever the volume or the deadline calls for it. The team is already in place, so scaling up costs us no recruitment time and costs you no onboarding period.
When something is urgent, we add people straight away and split the sheets into batches that run in parallel. If a drafter is off sick or on holiday, a colleague takes over so the schedule does not slip. We do not quote lead times in days up front, because a stack of clean DWGs reads very differently from a file of sheets that were amended by hand. What we do is draw up a schedule in the first conversation, and we stick to it.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
How we digitise building drawings, from first call to partial delivery
A project to digitise building drawings starts with a conversation in which we go through the file together. We ask what you have, what period it dates from, whether a digital version still exists and what you plan to do with the set. A contractor about to renovate a building needs different output from an architecture practice picking up an old project again. You then send us the details, usually together with the existing drawings that need revising. We read through that material before anyone starts drafting, because a wrong assumption on the first sheet carries through the entire set.
Next, we split the work into batches. We keep the first batch small and deliberately representative, because a floor plan, a section and a detail sheet together tell us enough about the standard. That partial delivery goes to you for feedback. If the layer structure, hatching and text setup are right, we carry those choices through the rest of the set.
If they are not, we adjust before the remaining sheets are started. We repeat that cycle until the file is complete. We match the rhythm of our check-ins to the pace of the project, so every two days on a tight schedule and weekly when there is more room. Contact runs by email and phone, and on larger projects you can log in to the software we use to track progress. That way you know early on what the rest of the set will look like.
Software, versions and formats when digitising building drawings
When digitising building drawings, we work mainly in AutoCAD, Revit and Rhino. For a flat 2D set, AutoCAD is usually the logical choice and we deliver DWG or DXF. If you want to use the drawings as a model, we build the whole thing in Revit, with floors, walls and openings as real objects rather than loose lines. We use Rhino for free-form shapes where a standard building model gets stuck. We also work in Inventor and Grasshopper, and to a limited extent in Dynamo and Vault.
We always work in the latest versions and deliver in the format that fits your environment, so DXF, DWG, the Revit formats or STEP. In practice, almost every common CAD format passes through our hands. More important than the software is how well the result fits your existing set. We follow the standard and the drawing conventions you give us, from layers and line weights to blocks, hatching, text heights and title blocks. If there is no documented standard, we derive one from recent work and run our choices past you first.
Where it makes sense, we also build parametric Revit families, so a recurring component does not have to be drawn from scratch every time. We work in our own environment with our own licences, not on your network, so you do not need to free up an account or a workstation. That saves your IT department work at the start of a project.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
Scaling up capacity to digitise building drawings
When it comes to digitising building drawings, capacity is usually the real reason people call us. A drawing office is running at full stretch, a new file comes in that nobody has time for, and the project lead needs hands that can start next week. For that, we deploy a permanent team that we put together per project. A manageable series can be handled by one drafter, while a large file is split across as many drafters as it needs, because our large, variable team scales with each project. We do not have to go looking for those people, because they already work for us and know how we operate. Everyone who drafts for us has more than ten years of CAD experience, so the learning curve is about your standard, not about the software. When something is urgent, we add people straight away. If someone goes on holiday or falls ill, we reassign the work internally and it simply carries on, without you receiving a bill for it.
There are no ongoing payroll costs with this way of working, because you pay for drafting work, not for availability. Even with a larger team on the job, coordination stays simple, because you deal with one fixed point of contact while we divide the sheets internally. How hard we can push became clear on a deadline that could not move, when our team worked evenings and weekends with days of fourteen to fifteen hours. That is not a standard promise, but it shows what is possible. What we will not do is quote a lead time in days up front, because the condition of the material you supply has too much influence on it.
Getting started with digitising building drawings
We do not need much to start digitising your building drawings. A half-hour conversation, the material and your drawing conventions usually get us a long way. Useful material includes scans or photos of the sheets, any existing DWGs, and the information that is not on the drawing but that you do know about. Think of a renovation that was never updated on paper, or services that were installed differently from how they were drawn.
It also helps if you tell us which part has priority, because that is where we start. We begin as soon as we have enough information to get going without guesswork.
We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, followed by a conversation in which we go through the project. A small job is fine, and many clients first have us do a limited number of sheets to assess our speed and accuracy. That is a useful test for both sides, because in the same round we see how the file is put together and where the tricky parts are. We charge by the hour or at a fixed project price, and we agree in advance which option suits the work.
The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you, including interim versions. We will sign a non-disclosure agreement on request, although no client has asked for one so far. A phone call or the contact form is all it takes to get things moving. We then check straight away whether the material you have supplied is complete enough to begin.
Frequently asked questions about digitising building drawings
Let us digitise your building drawings
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.