Measuring a house for siding traditionally means a measuring wheel, a ladder, and some trigonometry about the gable ends. Scanstead's exterior capture replaces most of that with a walk around the building.
What exterior capture gives you
Outdoor scanning works differently from indoor rooms. Instead of a parametric room model, you get a LiDAR mesh of the building with wall-area estimates — the surfaces as measured, not inferred into tidy rectangles.
- Wall area per elevation, which is the siding quantity
- Building footprint and perimeter, from the same pass
- Opening locations to subtract windows and doors
- A visual record of condition, trim details, and what the existing cladding is
Walk it like a scan, not a stroll
Keep eight to fifteen feet off the wall, move at a steady pace, and sweep up as well as across so the upper story and the soffit line are in the capture. Corners deserve a pause. If you can only get five feet from a wall because of a fence, expect a thinner capture on that elevation and plan to add it from the plan dimensions.
The honest limits
Gable peaks and anything above the second story are where phone LiDAR runs out of range. You will get the lower walls well and the upper geometry approximately. Treat the measured lower elevations as the reliable number, and the gables as a figure to confirm — the triangle math off a measured wall width and roof pitch is still the right tool up there.
Bright direct sun also degrades LiDAR return. Overcast, morning, or evening light gives noticeably better exteriors than noon in July.
Where it changes the bid
Siding is priced per square. Having measured elevations plus photos means you can bid from the truck, show the client exactly which walls you priced, and skip the second trip for the measurements you forgot.
The ladder is for installing. It should not be for measuring.