Mobile or static laser scanner — which one suits your building?

A static scanner is set up on a tripod, scans from where it stands, and is moved to the next station. A mobile scanner is carried and captures continuously as you walk. Both produce a registered point cloud; they differ in accuracy, in speed, and above all in what they let you survey without emptying the building first.

The short version

Static scanning is more accurate over long distances and on facades — the instrument does not move while measuring.
Mobile scanning is far faster indoors and handles complexity a tripod cannot reach.
A staircase, a cellar or a corridor costs a static scanner a station at every turn.
Mobile scanning surveys an occupied building without moving anyone out.
Most building surveys use mobile indoors and static on facades, registered onto one base.

Side by side

Criterion	Mobile scannerCarried. Captures while walking.	Static scannerTripod-mounted. Scans from fixed stations.
Method	Continuous capture while walking	Fixed stations, moved between scans
Accuracy	±2 to ±5 mm relative, over a room	±1 to ±2 mm, best over distance
Speed indoors	A flat in half a day	Two to three times longer
Complex geometry	Excellent — stairs, corridors, voids, cellars	Slow — a station at every turn
Long-range facades	Limited	Strong
Occupied buildings	Unobtrusive, occupants can stay	Intrusive, spaces must be cleared
Point density	High, slightly uneven	Very high and even
Best used for	Interiors, complex volumes, occupied buildings	Facades, large open volumes, high-accuracy work

Mobile scanning suits

Occupied flats and offices where nobody can be moved out
Spiral staircases, cellars, lofts, narrow corridors and lightwells
Buildings with many small rooms, where each would cost a station
Surveys that have to fit into a half-day slot
Retail or hospitality captured between services

Static scanning suits

Facades and elevations measured from a distance
Large open volumes — industrial halls, churches, atria
Work where accuracy has to hold across tens of metres
Heritage recording where the highest point density is wanted
Sites where the building is empty and time is not the constraint

What we would do

We use both on the same job more often than not, and register them onto one coordinate base. Mobile scanning does the interior — it is what makes a half-day survey of an occupied flat possible at all — and static scanning does the facades, where accuracy has to hold across distance. Asking which is better is the wrong question; asking which parts of your building need which is the right one, and it is a question that belongs in the quote.

Get an instant quote Talk it through first

Common questions

Is mobile scanning accurate enough?

For refurbishment and Scan to BIM, yes: a few millimetres relative accuracy across a room, which is finer than the building's own tolerances. Where it is not enough is long-range work — a thirty-metre facade — and that is exactly where we bring the static scanner.

Can you survey without emptying the room?

With mobile scanning, yes, and it is the main reason we use it. Furniture creates shadows, so anything that must be measured behind a wardrobe needs it moved — but occupants stay, and the visit takes half a day rather than two.

Do you charge differently for each?

No. Pricing is per square metre — 3 €/m² excl. VAT indoors, 2 €/m² for exteriors — whichever instrument the job calls for. Which one we bring is our problem, not a line on your quote.

How are the two combined?

Both clouds are registered onto the same coordinate base during processing, so the interior and the facades sit in one coherent model. You receive a single registered cloud, not two files that nearly line up.