Designing with accurate measurements

Author:Cornelia Dietz

Great design starts with the designer’s inspiration and accurate measurements. Falk Flöther, leader of CADFish and partner of Vectorworks knows this. Flöther worked as a CAD specialist dealer for Vectorworks, a CAD and BIM software provider, and founded his own company,CADfish, to distribute Vectorworks’ solutions in the region of Graz, Linz and Western Austria.

Flöther develops entire workflows for his clientsproviding CAD services for the architecture, landscape and event industrieswith integrated, complete solutions from the initial on-site measurements to the finished plan. This is whereLeica Disto™S910comes into the picture.

Flöther最初尝试使用三脚架适配器的Disto™S910FTA360-Sand the tripodTRI70tocarry out distance measurementswhile working on his company building. The precision surveying laser distance metre provided the consistent workflow with multiple precise measurements in 3D he was looking for.

Capturing multiple measurements in 3D

Flöther usuallymeasures challenging dry construction and facades with different room heights, several slopes and joints. TheDISTO™ S910 radically improved the efficiency of his common measuring tasks. Flöther enjoys the设备的简单性; he can measure from one single location and operate the laser distance metre without studying manuals or videos.

“Once the device had been positioned centrally in the room, it was aligned horizontally and rotated three times by 90° to level the device 'mathematically'. Then, with the help of the micro-adjustable stand adapter and Leica DISTO™ Point to Point function, measuring started by pointing to the selected surfaces in the building,”explained Flöther.“Once the last point had been recorded, the 3D point cloud was saved on the device as a Drawing Exchange Format (DXF) file. Pictures of the surveyed points were automatically saved alongside, making it easy to control the quality and check the surveyed data later.”

TheDISTO™ S910 connects to compatible mobile apps with Bluetooth and exports the DXF files over WiFi, allowing to start post-processing immediately after measuring to visualise and manage data.

从田野到办公室

将Leica Disto™S910连接到计算机，然后将DXF文件直接移动到矢量沃工作中，2D和3D CAD和BIM软件, using the drag-and-drop function enabled Flöther to adjust the working planes of the imported 3D points, create tables with construction elements and more.

“You can adjust the working planes of the imported 3D points with three clicks, and then a simple rectangle or polygon can be plotted on the selected surfaces,”said Flöther.“To update tables, all I have to do is right click on the table that I have created for the dry construction elements and it updates. With one click I have all the dimensions, and they are always up to date. All of this works equally well with distance measurement units, for example, in corner profiles.”

To visualise data in an easier way, the CAD expert plots different surfaces or panelling with different classes of a polygon. For instance, Flöther plotted the dry construction surfaces in green and in grey.

UsingDISTO™S910, Flöther collects precise 3D data from simple or complex surfaces and transfers easily any measurement into Vectorworkswith 3D points available in DXF format. Precision surveying tools just like DISTO™S910 can还为CAD软件用户提供有效的解决方案who need accurate measurements visualised in a smart way for designing.