Behind the question of how much drawing digitisation costs, there is almost always a drawer full of paper or a folder of scans that nobody has in DWG any more. Sometimes it concerns old large-format building drawings, sometimes production drawings for a machine that is still running, sometimes an as-built file that has been half updated by hand.
The type of material determines the work, because converting a clean scan is something different from reconstructing a yellowed print.
We convert that material into usable CAD files, in 2D and in 3D where needed, for companies that cannot free up the hours to do it themselves. We redraw; we do not fill gaps with assumptions. Anything illegible we refer back to you, unless we can reliably derive it from the rest of the set. Below you can read when this work lends itself to outsourcing, what we deliver, where the time savings lie and how contact runs during a project like this.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
When drawing digitisation belongs outside your office
Not every digitisation job belongs with us. If it is five sheets that your own drafter traces between two assignments, outsourcing makes no sense, because the handover then costs more than the work itself. Drawings that contain a lot of company-specific knowledge, where someone needs to know why a detail was built exactly that way, are also better kept in-house. We ask about this in the first conversation and simply tell you if we think it will be faster internally. Outsourcing pays off as soon as volume comes into play.
Hundreds of sheets, a complete archive, a product line that has to move from paper to CAD, or an as-built file that needs to be in order for a renovation. Work like that eats up a drawing office's diary while leaving little room for the work that actually earns you money. It also pays off when it has to happen alongside ongoing production. A drafter who traces an archive between two projects never really gets round to either.
We take on that parallel track from our own office, with our own people and licences. The third situation in which outsourcing makes sense is called a deadline. If a file has to be complete by a fixed date, we put more people on it instead of a single drafter working overtime. Our large, flexible team scales up per project, depending on what the work requires. What makes sense in a specific case, we only say once we have seen the material.
What we deliver when we digitise drawings
We do not deliver a trace with the scan pasted underneath as an image. You receive genuine CAD files, built from lines, blocks and layers that mean something. In concrete terms, that covers floor plans, elevations, sections, details, schematic diagrams and production drawings, depending on what is in the source material. If you ask for it, we take the material through to 3D and build a model from it. We deliver in DXF, DWG, the Revit formats and STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format. We include title blocks, dimensions, hatching and text, in the layout your organisation uses.
Where the source material is illegible, we do not guess. We mark that point and refer it back, or we derive it from the rest of the set if that can be done reliably. For Firefly we received as-built material that had been printed incorrectly and partly updated by hand. We worked through that ourselves instead of calling the client every day, and still delivered it neatly. Before a set goes out, at least three people look it over: a second drafter, then Sam, our team leader, and finally Barry, our project manager. We deliver in batches, not all at once at the end.
That way you see early on whether the structure is right, and we correct a small part rather than a hundred sheets. That way of working keeps the number of correction rounds low. If it turns out along the way that a particular sheet needs more attention than expected, we report it immediately rather than quietly solving it. You therefore keep a grip on both the content and the hours the work takes.
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.
The repetitive side of drawing digitisation
Digitisation work is mostly repetition, and that is exactly where the gain lies. An archive rarely contains a hundred different drawings; it often contains ten types that recur a hundred times with different dimensions. We identify those types first. As soon as the structure of the first sheet is right, the basis for the rest is set, with the same layers, the same blocks and the same naming. Every following sheet then takes less time than the previous one. We build libraries of components that keep coming back. In Revit we do that with parametric families: smart components that adapt to a new size without anyone redrawing. The material schedule follows along, so if the component changes, the schedule updates automatically. Companies in greenhouse construction often work in AutoCAD, and AutoCAD is not smart at building up components such as valves in piping systems.
If you need a valve in 90 and in 110, you draw it by hand again every time there. With a smart family it is placed in a single action, and in that kind of work that saves at least seventy per cent of the time. The same logic applies when converting an old archive. The more we standardise at the front end, the cheaper the volume turns out at the back end. That is why we would rather invest a few hours in a good set-up than start churning out sheets straight away. We discuss that set-up in advance, so you know where your hours are going. If we notice during the conversion that a type occurs more often than expected, we adjust the approach accordingly and you benefit from it directly in the rest of the archive.
A fixed point of contact and communication during digitisation
You have a fixed point of contact with us. Barry is the first contact for a new enquiry and then remains available for the business side. As soon as it becomes technical, Sam takes over, because he leads the CAD team and carries the technical responsibility. His background in architecture spans more than fifteen years; he worked in Iran for seven years, ran his own design practice in the Netherlands and is still an engineer.
So there is no account manager between you and the drawing office. We agree the meeting rhythm with each client. One wants to catch up every two days because the schedule is tight, another is happy with a weekly slot.
Email, phone and meetings carry the day-to-day contact. For standalone drafting work, files simply go back and forth by email. For larger projects we use software that you can log in to and follow the progress yourself, so you never need to ask how far along it is. The work is carried out remotely from our own office, but we visit you or welcome you at our office if that helps. Our working area is the Netherlands, and that is also our focus.
We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, and as soon as we have enough information we can start. If you would first like a taste of how it works, start with a small assignment. You then decide for yourself whether to hand us the entire archive or keep part of it in-house. We do not push for that and are just as happy to work on a defined portion.
Frequently asked questions about how much drawing digitisation costs
Let us digitise your 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.