In House Image achieve considerable savings with Hovermap’s versatility

Joseph Bellantoni has been working in construction documentation for over twenty years. In 2003 he founded In House Image (IHI) in New York to help customers manage record-keeping for preparations, disputes, and delays. Until recently, this involved photography and videography, then in late 2020, our partner Qntfi introduced Joseph to Hovermap. According to Joseph, this has taken IHI’s services to the next level.

“The speed of Hovermap compared to terrestrial scanners is tremendous,” said Joseph.

“We scanned 3.5 miles of platform, mezzanine, where they were installing an elevator and were done in under two and a half hours. With a terrestrial scanner, it would have taken three weeks.”

Joseph is also finding that it can be used in all the areas that IHI works too, from construction to transportation and land development to design fit-outs.

In construction, IHI found being able to scan and process the captured data on-site while precast concrete is being erected, a great money saver.

“We’re able to fly over it and scan just after it has been erected. You don’t have to take the crane off-site, then see that there is a problem and bring the crane back, which can save the cost of having the crane on-site for an additional three or four days,” said Joseph.

The speed of Hovermap is useful when working on New York City transit projects, where IHI are monitoring the state of the tunnels and equipment for maintenance.

Safety requirements in the subway mean that tunnels have to be shut off for access, and normal scanning methods could take hours or even a whole day to scan the tunnel. Hovermap allows them to collect what they need in as little as 15 minutes, with the security of near full coverage, according to Joseph.

“You can walk away with all of the data you need in the scan, which is great for the places you’re not able to go back multiple times in a year, like the subway. Stopping the subway a second time because you missed something could cost lots of money.”

This earthworks scan colorized by height, captured in a 5-minute flight with a drone-mounted Hovermap, shows the cut depth.

IHI can also provide additional benefits in their transit projects by providing as-built references of the comms rooms, often not incorporated in plans. This saves transit workers, and contractors time by tracing out conduits to identify which control panels are used for what purpose and creating records for future use.

They also see a benefit in land development, using Hovermap mounted to a drone to fly and map the area. This data can then be used to virtually position the houses, determine cut, fill and drainage, and even tree analysis. In an upcoming project of a 13-acre land development, IHI plan to scan the area and count the trees to identify the number and types of permits required based on the number and size of trees according to the local county laws.

A new area for IHI that has opened up recently is design fit-outs. Despite the pandemic, business in this area has increased as companies move out of the city, in Joseph’s case, Manhattan, to downsize and economize their real estate expenses.

IHI is able to scan the space for internal fit-out companies quickly

“With Hovermap, measuring the square footage of an office, with all the cubicles, offices, and closets took under an hour, including processing and producing drawings. The person doing laser measurements took all day. And wasn’t as accurate!”

Plus, the scan provides exact measurements. These measurements result in better estimations of materials required and a saving of time and money.

But Joseph’s favorite thing about the Hovermap?

“I love looking at everybody’s face when I bring it on-site,” he said.

“You get to interact with everybody, and they can see the benefits straight away.”