Floor Plan

A floor plan is a two-dimensional scaled drawing that represents the layout of a single floor of a building as viewed from above. It shows the position and dimensions of walls, columns, doors, windows, stairs, and — in structural drawings — the primary load-bearing elements and their grid references. Floor plans are the foundational document of architectural and engineering practice: the common spatial reference against which all other building information is organised.

In the context of site documentation and inspection, the floor plan serves as the index. Every observation made on site — a crack in a column, a leaking joint, a damaged tile — can be located on the floor plan by its grid reference, its room, and its position within that room. Without a floor plan reference, a collection of site photographs or inspection notes is a list; with a floor plan reference, it becomes a spatially-organised record that any reader can navigate.

The format in which floor plans are available varies. Modern buildings typically have floor plans in CAD (DWG or DXF format) or BIM (Revit or IFC format). For documentation purposes, these are most commonly exported or printed as PDF files. Older buildings may have floor plans only as paper drawings, which require scanning before they can be used digitally.

The quality of the floor plan matters for documentation accuracy. A drawing that accurately reflects the as-built structure — with correct column spacings, wall positions, and grid references — allows photographs and observations to be located precisely. A drawing that differs from the as-built condition (common in buildings that have been modified or where the original drawings were never fully updated) can introduce positional errors that undermine the usefulness of the survey record.

Pin360 is built around the floor plan as its primary reference: upload a PDF floor plan, pin 360° photos to the locations where they were taken, and share the result as an interactive link. The floor plan is both the navigation interface and the spatial index — clicking any pin takes the viewer to the full 360° view from that point on the drawing.