Guide · File formats
DWG, RVT or PDF: Which Should You Ask For?
An as-built survey measures a building once and then hands it over in files, and the files are where most of the friction lives. A PDF, a layered DWG, a Revit model and a raw point cloud can all describe the same suite, but each one has a different next reader, opens in different software and supports different work. Ask for the wrong one and the drawings are accurate but awkward. This guide sets out what each format is for, which one your next step actually needs, and the few questions that decide whether a file is workable on the day it arrives.
The short answer
Ask for the format your next step opens. If people will read, mark up or file the drawings, a PDF is enough. If a drafter will keep drawing on the plan in AutoCAD, ask for a layered DWG. If the design team models in Revit, ask for an RVT in their Revit version. If a consultant works directly in scan data, raise the point cloud when the scope is set. Our standard set is PDF and layered DWG, with RVT where the scope includes a model and the iGUIDE 3D tour alongside.
One survey, several files
Every as-built starts as the same thing: a measurement of the building. On our jobs that is a LiDAR capture at ±10mm, registered into one point cloud, from which the drawings are drafted. The formats come afterwards. They are different ways of packaging that one measurement for the people who will use it next.
That order matters, because it means the format decision changes almost nothing about the site visit and a great deal about the drafting. A PDF plan, a layered CAD file and a Revit model are three increasingly large pieces of work drawn from the same capture. Deciding which ones you need when the job is booked means they are all produced in one pass, rather than one now and another after someone discovers the first will not open in their software.
The useful question is therefore not which format is best. It is who opens the file next, in what program, to do what. Answer that for each person on the project and the deliverable list more or less writes itself.
Each format and the person who opens it next
Read across a row: what the file is, who picks it up after us, and what it lets them do that the others do not.
| Format | What it is | Who opens it next | What it is good for | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it isDimensioned, printable plan sheets | Who opens it nextOwners, property managers, leasing agents, contractors pricing the work | What it is good forReading, sharing, marking up, printing to scale, keeping in the building file | Where it stopsNobody can keep drawing on it. Editing a PDF plan means redrawing it | |
| DWG | What it isLayered 2D CAD linework, the native AutoCAD format | Who opens it nextArchitects, interior designers and drafters working in AutoCAD or compatible CAD | What it is good forTest fits, space plans, demolition and new-work drawings drawn over the measured base | Where it stopsIt is lines, not building elements. Walls do not know they are walls |
| RVT | What it isA Revit model of existing conditions: walls, floors, ceilings, openings, structure | Who opens it nextDesign teams and consultants working in Revit | What it is good forSections, schedules, coordination between disciplines, construction documents from one model | Where it stopsIt is only useful to a team that works in Revit, and only in their version or newer |
| Point cloud | What it isThe registered scan data itself: millions of measured points | Who opens it nextConsultants and modellers who work directly in scan data | What it is good forChecking or extracting geometry the drawings did not include | Where it stopsIt is not a drawing. Someone still has to draft from it |
| iGUIDE 3D tour | What it isA walkable, measurable capture of the space, linked to the floor plan | Who opens it nextEveryone on the project, in a web browser | What it is good forChecking a detail, a finish or a fixture without another site visit | Where it stopsIt shows the space. It is not a file anyone drafts in |
PDF and layered DWG are our standard set, RVT is delivered where the scope includes a model, and the 3D tour comes with the job. Registered scan data is scoped in on request.
PDF: the format everyone can open
A PDF is the drawing as a finished document. It opens on any device without special software, it prints to scale, and it can be marked up, signed and filed. For a property manager keeping the building record, a leasing agent showing a vacancy or a contractor pricing a job, it is usually everything that is needed.
What a PDF cannot do is carry on being drawn. The moment someone needs to move a wall, add a room or lay furniture over the plan, a PDF has to be redrawn in CAD first, which is exactly the work a measured survey was meant to save. It is also worth knowing that not every PDF is equal. A vector PDF exported from a CAD program keeps its linework sharp at any zoom and can be measured in most PDF viewers. A scanned paper drawing saved as a PDF is a picture of a drawing, and measuring from it inherits every distortion of the scanner and the paper.
Every set we deliver includes PDF plans, because almost every project has at least one person who only needs to read the drawings.
DWG: the format a drafter keeps working in
DWG is AutoCAD's native file format, and it is still the common language of commercial interior and tenant improvement work. It is what an architect or designer asks for when the next step is drawing on top of the existing conditions: a test fit, a space plan, or a set of demolition and new-work drawings.
A DWG is two-dimensional linework. A wall is two parallel lines, a door is an arc and a line. That simplicity is its strength, because any CAD user can pick it up, and it is also its limit, because the file has no idea what anything in it is. Everything that makes a DWG pleasant or painful to work with comes down to how that linework is organised.
The difference between a good DWG and a bad one is rarely the accuracy of the lines. It is whether walls, doors, dimensions, text and ceiling content sit on separate layers that can be switched off; whether the file is drawn at real-world scale in the units the office expects; and whether it arrives in a DWG version the office's AutoCAD can open. A file of flat linework on a single layer is technically a DWG and practically a morning's clean-up.
What makes a DWG workable on the day it arrives
Five things to settle before drafting starts. None of them changes the measurement; all of them change how long your team spends before it can start designing.
Layers
Walls, doors, windows, dimensions, text and ceiling content each on their own layer, so a designer can turn off what they are replacing and draw over what stays. Tell us your layer standard and the file arrives in it; without one, we use a clean conventional structure a drafter can read without a legend.
Units and scale
The drawing should be drawn at full size in the units your office works in, so a dimension taken off the file is the real dimension. Say whether your office works in metric or imperial.
Version
AutoCAD can save a file back to earlier DWG versions, but an office on an older release cannot open a newer file until someone does. Say which release you use when booking.
Titleblock and standards
If your drawings go out under your own titleblock, send it. Matching it at the drafting stage is quicker than transplanting the drawing into it afterwards.
What is in scope
Floor plans alone, or reflected ceiling plans as well? A DWG only contains what was drafted, and ceilings added after delivery mean a second round of drafting.
RVT: the format for teams that model
An RVT is a Revit model. Instead of lines, it contains building elements: walls with a thickness and a height, floors at real elevations, ceilings, columns, doors and windows that know what they are. Cut a section through it and the section is generated from the model rather than drawn. Schedule the doors and the schedule is counted from the doors. That is why a design team working in Revit wants existing conditions as a model rather than as a CAD file it has to rebuild.
Revit is also the format where version matters most. A Revit file opened in a newer release is upgraded, and once saved it cannot be opened in the older one. Revit does not save backward. If your office is on an earlier release than the one the model was built in, the file is unusable until the modeller rebuilds or re-saves it. Tell us the Revit version your team works in when you book, and the model is delivered to match.
The other decision for a model is how much detail it carries. A model built for early feasibility is deliberately simplified. A model that will carry a project through construction documents follows the scan much more closely and takes longer to build. Both are measured; the difference is how much of the measurement is modelled. The scan-to-Revit page covers what goes into the model and how the level of detail is agreed.
If nobody on the project designs in Revit, a model is a cost with no reader. For a test fit, a leasing exercise or a building-file record, a PDF and a layered DWG usually do the job for less, and we would rather say so than deliver a file that sits unopened.
Point clouds, and the formats you may hear about
The point cloud is the raw measurement: millions of points, each with a position, captured by the scanner and registered into one coordinate system. It is the dataset every drawing on a job is drafted from. It is not itself a drawing, and on most commercial projects nobody downstream needs it, because the drawings and the 3D tour carry what the design team uses.
Some consultants do work directly in scan data, to check a clearance, extract geometry a drawing did not include, or model something themselves. For them the point cloud is worth having, and the format question is which software they will open it in. E57 is the vendor-neutral format for 3D imaging data, published by ASTM International as standard E2807, and most point cloud software can read it. Autodesk's ReCap uses its own project and scan formats, which is what a team loading scan data into AutoCAD or Revit may ask for. If your consultant works in point cloud, raise it when the scope is set, say which software they use, and it gets written into the job.
Two other formats come up in conversation. DXF is Autodesk's exchange format for moving CAD drawings into other programs, and it is sometimes requested by teams that do not use AutoCAD. IFC is the open schema for exchanging building models between different BIM programs, maintained by buildingSMART and published as ISO 16739. Neither is part of our standard set. If your workflow depends on one, say so before the job is booked rather than after delivery.
Match the format to the next step
Most projects need more than one format, because different people act on the drawings. Start from what happens next.
| If the next step is… | Ask for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping a record of the building | Anyone can open and print it, now and in ten years | |
| Marketing a vacancy | PDF plans and the 3D tour | Prospects read plans and walk the space; nobody drafts in them |
| Pricing or bidding the work | PDF, with the 3D tour | Contractors measure and mark up; the tour answers site questions |
| A test fit or space plan in AutoCAD | Layered DWG | The designer draws over the measured base instead of redrawing it |
| Tenant improvement drawings | Layered DWG, with reflected ceiling plans if the ceiling is changing | Demolition and new work are drawn over existing conditions, floor and ceiling |
| Design and documentation in Revit | RVT in the team's Revit version | Sections, schedules and coordination come out of the model |
| A consultant working in scan data | Registered point cloud, scoped in | They extract or check geometry the drawings did not carry |
Keeping a record of the building
- Ask for
- Why
- Anyone can open and print it, now and in ten years
Marketing a vacancy
- Ask for
- PDF plans and the 3D tour
- Why
- Prospects read plans and walk the space; nobody drafts in them
Pricing or bidding the work
- Ask for
- PDF, with the 3D tour
- Why
- Contractors measure and mark up; the tour answers site questions
A test fit or space plan in AutoCAD
- Ask for
- Layered DWG
- Why
- The designer draws over the measured base instead of redrawing it
Tenant improvement drawings
- Ask for
- Layered DWG, with reflected ceiling plans if the ceiling is changing
- Why
- Demolition and new work are drawn over existing conditions, floor and ceiling
Design and documentation in Revit
- Ask for
- RVT in the team's Revit version
- Why
- Sections, schedules and coordination come out of the model
A consultant working in scan data
- Ask for
- Registered point cloud, scoped in
- Why
- They extract or check geometry the drawings did not carry
Which drawings a project needs, and to what standard, is the design team's call. This table is about which file suits each kind of work, not what a particular project requires.
Settling the deliverable list before the scan
A short conversation at booking saves a second round of drafting later. The questions, in the order worth asking them:
List who will open the files
Owner, property manager, architect, designer, contractor, consultants. Each one usually needs a different format, and some need none at all beyond the PDF.
Ask what software each one uses
AutoCAD, Revit, something else, or only a PDF viewer. If the answer is Revit, ask which release.
Decide the scope once
Floor plans, reflected ceiling plans, a model and its level of detail. Anything decided at booking is drafted in one pass; anything added after delivery starts a new round.
Send your standards
A layer standard, a titleblock, a preferred unit system. If there is no documented standard, that is common and not a problem; say so and the file arrives in a conventional structure.
Name anything unusual
A point cloud for a consultant, a DXF for a non-AutoCAD team, an IFC for a mixed BIM workflow. These are scoped in, not assumed.
Why the file format does not change the accuracy
It is easy to assume a Revit model is more accurate than a PDF because it is more sophisticated. It is not, or at least not for that reason. On our jobs every format is drafted from the same ±10mm capture, so a dimension on the PDF plan and the same dimension in the model come from the same measurement.
Where accuracy really differs is in where a file's geometry came from. A beautifully layered DWG traced from a thirty-year-old drawing is exactly as wrong as the drawing it was traced from, and now it looks authoritative. A Revit model built over a scanned PDF inherits the same problem. The format tells you how the information is packaged. The survey behind it tells you whether the information is true.
So when comparing deliverables between firms, ask two separate questions. Which formats do you deliver, and in what version and standard? And what was the geometry measured with? The guide to LiDAR, Matterport and tape covers the second question in detail.
See the files for yourself
The sample page shows a delivered set: plan sheets, the 3D tour and the measured output behind them.
Opens the sample page — floor plans, an iGUIDE tour and measured output from real work.
Common questions
Usually PDF for reading and printing, DWG for continued drafting in AutoCAD, and RVT where the design team works in Revit. Some projects also take the registered point cloud. Our standard set is PDF and layered DWG, with RVT where the scope includes a model and the iGUIDE 3D tour alongside.
A DWG is two-dimensional linework: a wall is two lines. An RVT is a Revit model: a wall is a building element with a thickness, a height and a position, from which plans, sections and schedules are generated. A team drafting in AutoCAD wants the DWG; a team modelling in Revit wants the RVT.
For reading, sharing, marking up and keeping in the building file, yes. If anyone will keep drawing on the plan, it is not, because a PDF has to be redrawn in CAD before it can be edited.
Yes. Tell us the version your team works in when you book. Revit files cannot be opened in an older release than the one they were saved in, so matching the version up front avoids a file nobody can open.
Yes. Send your layer standard and titleblock when you book and the DWG arrives in them. If you do not have a documented standard, the file is delivered in a clean conventional layer structure a drafter can work in without a legend.
The point cloud is the dataset every drawing is drafted from. It is not part of the standard set, because most commercial projects do not need it downstream. If a consultant works directly in scan data, raise it when the scope is set, say which software they use, and it is scoped into the job.
Neither is part of our standard set. If your workflow depends on one, say so before the job is booked so it can be discussed as part of the scope, rather than after the files are delivered.
Not on our jobs. Every format is drafted from the same ±10mm LiDAR capture, so the same dimension on the PDF and in the model comes from the same measurement. What differs between formats is how the information is packaged, not how the building was measured.
Keep reading
Name the formats when you book
Book the scan online with an instant estimate. PDF and layered DWG as standard, Revit where the scope includes a model, and the iGUIDE 3D tour with every job.