Scale to a Reference, Then Measure Damage in a 3D Scan
A capture built from photos or video has no real size until you give it one. Scale the scene to a tape, a door or a marker you measured, then measure damage in a 3D scan from your desk: wall runs, waterlines and openings.
A 3D capture made from photos or video has a shape but no size. Scaling fixes that: you tell the scene how long one thing in it really is, and every other distance follows. Once a scene is scaled, you can measure damage in a 3D scan the way you would on site, point to point, without going back with a tape.
That is the new Scale and Measure pair in the Captures Studio editor. Scale gives you a real world scale 3D scene from a reference you trust. Measure reads lengths, areas and perimeters straight off the reconstructed surfaces, in metres, centimetres, millimetres, yards, feet or inches.
Why does a 3D capture need scaling before you measure?
A reconstruction from ordinary photos or video recovers the shape of a room and where the camera was, but not how big anything is. A small room filmed close and a large one filmed far can produce the same geometry. Scaling to a real reference ties the scene to real units, so measured distances mean something.
LiDAR brings its own metric scale, because the scanner measures range directly. A phone walkthrough turned into a scene through video to 3D does not. Until it is scaled, any length you click is in the reconstruction's own arbitrary units.
How to scale a scene to a real reference
Reference object scaling in the editor takes three moves: pick two points, type the real length, and the scene rescales.
1. Open the Scale panel
There are two ways in. From the Measure panel, the footer card asks "Is your scene off scale?" with a Scale button underneath. Or, in the Edit Splats tab with the splat selected for moving, the Scale button sits below the alignment controls.
2. Choose your unit
The Measurement Unit row offers m, cm, mm, yd, ft and in. Pick the one your reference was measured in. Switching later converts any lengths you already typed, so nothing has to be re-entered.
3. Add a reference
Press Add reference, then click the first point on the scene and the second. A card appears for Reference 1 with two coloured dots matching the points in the viewport, and a Measured value: the length as the scene currently has it.
4. Type the actual length
Enter the true length in the Actual length field and press Enter. The whole scene rescales at once, every layer together, so the Measured value on the card now matches what you typed.
5. Add more references if you have them
You can add a second and third reference. The editor fits one scale factor across all of them rather than trusting the last one entered, and longer references carry more weight in that fit. A bad reference is deleted from its card with the bin icon.
6. Done, or back out
Done keeps the new scale. The back arrow throws the change away and restores the scene as it was when you opened Scale, so an experiment costs nothing.
How to measure damage in a 3D scan
Measure lives in the Ruler tool on the viewport toolbar, shortcut R. Right-clicking the scene and choosing Measure gets you to the same place.
Press Measure, then click on the surfaces. Two points give a Length. Keep clicking and the shape closes into a polygon, and the panel switches to Area and Perimeter. Press Enter to finish a measurement and start the next, and Esc to stop placing points.
Each measurement lands in a list. Open one to give it a name ("Kitchen waterline, north wall" reads better in a file than "Measurement 3"), and to fix a point. Select a point in the grid and either drag its handles or press Re-place and click the surface again. You do not have to start over because one click landed on a skirting board instead of the wall.
Click points on solid, well-reconstructed surface: a wall face, a floor, a frame edge. A point dropped into a gap or onto a soft, smeared patch takes whatever depth the reconstruction guessed there, and the reading inherits that guess.
What makes a good reference?
Precision here is not a fixed property of the tool. It depends on the reference you choose and on how cleanly the capture recovered it, so the reference deserves more thought than any other step.
| Reference | Why it works | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Tape measure laid in shot | You know the number, and both ends are visible | Keep it flat and straight; a sagging tape reads short |
| Door you measured on site | Long, rigid, square, in nearly every room | Measure it yourself, do not assume a standard size |
| Printed marker or scale bar | Made to a known size, sharp edges to click | Must be big enough to resolve in the capture |
| Floor tile or cabinet run | Already in the room, often repeated | Grout lines and trims blur the true ends |
A good reference is long relative to what you plan to measure, rigid, and has crisp ends you can click without guessing. It sits on a surface the capture saw well from several angles. Ideally it lies in the same part of the scene as the damage, since a reference on the far side of a large space tells you less about the near side. Two references on different walls give you a cross-check.
Capture tips that help measurement
Measurement starts on site, in how the space is filmed.
- Put the reference in the shot deliberately. Lay the tape along the wall before you start recording, and film it from more than one angle.
- Cover the areas you will measure from several directions. Corners, frames and the base of walls are where dimensions live, and they are often filmed only in passing.
- Move slowly through doorways. Openings are thin geometry and blur easily.
- Keep lighting steady. Turn lights on before recording and leave them on, so surfaces look the same in every frame.
For coverage in detail, see how many photos a Gaussian splat needs.
Three uses on an insurance claim
Water damage extent
A waterline is a long, irregular boundary, which is awkward to sketch from photos. In a scaled scene, trace the stained band with Measure as a run of points along each wall and read the perimeter, or close it into a polygon on the floor to read the affected area. The ANSI/IICRC S500 water damage standard (fifth edition, 2021) treats documenting how far water migrated, including the unaffected areas around it, as part of the project record. A scaled scene does not replace a moisture meter, but it keeps the visible extent in a form someone else can re-measure later.
Wall and floor runs
Estimates are built on runs: how much baseboard, drywall and flooring. Teams that measure damage in a 3D scan this way click a wall corner to corner for a length, or outline a floor for area and perimeter, and name each one by room. A desk adjuster reviewing a contractor's figures can open the same scene and measure distance in 3D for themselves instead of trusting a sketch.
Opening sizes
Doors, windows and pass-throughs matter for replacement items and for the wall area left once openings are taken out. A Length across the head and another down the jamb give the size. If the door itself was your scale reference, measure a different opening, so you are not just reading back the number you typed.
Where it falls down
A scaled scene is only as good as its weakest input. A reference with fuzzy ends, or one that sagged, will scale the whole scene slightly wrong, and every measurement inherits that error. Surfaces the capture struggled with, such as glass, mirrors, glossy wet floors and bare white walls with no texture, can come back soft, and a point clicked on them lands somewhere approximate. And a capture taken once shows the space at that moment: water that spread after filming is not in it.
So treat a reading off the capture as documentation you can repeat and show to someone else. Where a dispute turns on the exact number, the tape on site still settles it.
FAQ
Can you measure distances in a 3D scan made from a phone video?
Yes, once the scene is scaled. A reconstruction from phone video has the right shape but no real size, so first set the scale from something you measured on site, like a door or a tape laid in shot. After that, point-to-point lengths, areas and perimeters read in real units.
How accurate are measurements from a scaled 3D capture?
There is no single figure to quote. Precision depends on how long and sharp your reference is, how well the capture covered the surfaces you click, and whether those surfaces reconstructed cleanly. Using two references on different walls and checking they agree is the practical way to judge a particular scene.
What is the best reference object for scaling a 3D scene?
Something long, rigid and measured by you, with crisp ends, sitting on a well-filmed surface near the area you care about. A tape measure laid flat in shot or a door you measured on site both work well. Avoid assuming a standard size for anything you did not measure.
Does a LiDAR scan need to be scaled before measuring?
A LiDAR scanner measures range directly, so the raw scan already carries real units. Scaling matters most for scenes reconstructed from ordinary photos, video or 360 footage, where size is unknown until you supply a reference. Either way, measuring a known length first is a quick check that the scene reads true.
Can I change units after measuring?
Yes. The Measurement Unit control offers metres, centimetres, millimetres, yards, feet and inches, and switching it updates every reading in the list. Reference lengths you already typed are converted to the new unit too, so the scale itself does not change when you switch.
The scene you capture is a record of shape. One known length turns it into a record of size, and from then on the dimension a claim needs is a few clicks away rather than a second site visit. Release notes for the editor tools sit on the changelog, and the reasoning behind desk review of a capture is covered in remote site inspection with 3D capture.