FARO As-Built for AutoCAD 2025.0.20

Description

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🎯 FARO As-Built for AutoCAD 2025.0.20 — Reality Capture Inside AutoCAD

As-Built for AutoCAD 2025.0.20 is FARO’s current production plugin for turning 3D laser scans into drawings you can keep editing in AutoCAD. It evaluates point clouds inside AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Plant 3D, and AutoCAD Architecture, then writes native DWG geometry — walls, slabs, pipes, steel, terrain, tunnels, bridges — not a locked mesh you cannot take into the next design stage.

📅 Build 2025.0.20 was published on 10 September 2026. It is the latest maintenance drop of the 2025 line (feature release: 27 June 2025). You get AutoCAD 2026 support, Control Points back on the Building Plans ribbon, and the reliability work FARO shipped after the June 2025 baseline.

If you already think in AutoCAD commands, this plugin is the shortest path from a registered ReCap cloud (RCS/RCP) to a deliverable floor plan, elevation, piping model, or clash report.

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✨ What’s new includ in 2025.0.20 :

🆕 AutoCAD 2026 on the same 2025 branch

2025.0 / 2025.0.20 supports Autodesk AutoCAD 2023–2026 (64-bit) and the matching years of Architecture, Civil 3D, and Plant 3D. You do not need a “2026-named” As-Built SKU just to open AutoCAD 2026. Point clouds stay on Autodesk ReCap RCS / RCP.

📍 Control Points are back

This is the headline functional change in 2025.0. Control Points were reintroduced and moved to the Building Plans ribbon, so survey control sits next to slice, wall-fit, and plan-extraction tools instead of in a buried menu. If you used Control Points in older PointSense / As-Built builds, look there first after upgrade.

📐 One-click planes and openings

• ⬛ Create a horizontal or vertical plane with one click.
• 🕳️ Create, edit, or delete holes in planes — windows, doors, and MEP penetrations when you are fitting geometry to a slice.
• 📏 Enhanced plane analysis for flatness, deviation, and fit quality before you commit walls or slabs.

🏭 Plant, steel, clash, and mesh upgrades carried into 2025

• 🔩 Faster pipe-run and stacked-steel modeling that respects plant-design constraints.
• ⚠️ Redesigned clash detection with boxes, labels, and a clash list in the drawing.
• 🌡️ Deviation heatmaps, elevation plans, and volume tools for model-to-cloud QA (including LOA-style checks).
• 🎨 Display and use textured meshes (OBJ / STL workflows).
• 📤 Section Manager — improved export for plans, elevations, and facades.
• 🧩 As-Built Modeler still included, so you can extract CAD/BIM geometry even when the destination system will not load a point cloud.
• 💬 FARO Assist and improved licensing from the current generation remain in the 2025 branch.

🛠️ FARO describes 2025 as including “enhancements, improvements as well as fixes that address customer-reported issues.” 2025.0.20 is the current production installer of that line. FARO has not published a separate public ticket list for the .20 patch — install .20 if you are on 2025.0; do not invent a feature that only exists in marketing copy.

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🚀 Product highlights :

• 🧱 Native AutoCAD output. Lines, polylines, solids, and plant objects you can dimension, hatch, and hand to the next drafter. Not a dead-end scan viewer.
• ✂️ Best-fit extraction. Fit lines to point-cloud slices with optional angular constraints (90°, orthogonal walls, constrained grids).
• 🏢 Building tools. Draw and dimension walls, doors, stairs, room-height blocks, and facade outlines from slices.
• 🚰 Intelligent piping and steel. Detect plant components and pipe systems with parameters; find connection points even before a full model exists.
• 🗺️ Civil and infrastructure. Terrain, excavations, tunnels, bridges, highways — plus clearance and volume checks.
• 📋 Feature data. Attribute capture for facility/asset lists, pipe bills of materials, and facade damage mapping (heritage / FM).
• 📦 One product instead of five. Successor to PointSense Pro, Building, Heritage, and Plant — plus later FARO AutoCAD tools — under one plugin.
• 🛰️ Scanner-agnostic after ReCap. Terrestrial, handheld, and mobile-mapping clouds are fine once they are registered RCS/RCP.

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👷 Who it is for :

• 🏛️ Architecture and historic-building documentation
• 🏗️ Construction QA/QC and as-built handover drawings
• 🔌 MEP and plant / process piping
• 🌉 Civil, survey, tunnels, bridges, corridors
• 🏭 Facility and asset management inventories

Skip this version if your daily work still depends on in-plugin photogrammetry or total-station control from AutoCAD. Those toolsets ended in 2023.x.

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🚫 Removed since 2024 (still gone in 2025.0.20) :

• 📡 Total Station Control / Total Station Design (As-Built TS Control and TS Design). Stakeout-from-CAD with the instrument as a “3D mouse” lives only in 2023.0 and older.
• 📷 As-Built Photo / photogrammetry. Image rectification, photo-based 3D linework, cylinder unwrap from photos — not in 2024 or 2025.
• 📁 Several legacy raw scan formats were dropped in earlier generations. Plan on ReCap RCS/RCP from SCENE or any other registration package.

⚠️ Upgrading a 2023 seat to 2025.0.20 without checking those two workflows is the most common “the software broke” ticket. The commands were removed on purpose.

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🐛 Bug fixes, patches, and known issues :

✅ What FARO officially says about 2025

• Customer-reported issues were addressed in the 2025.0 feature release (June 2025).
• 2025.0.20 (10 September 2026) is the current production maintenance build of that line — the installer FARO lists as current on the download page.
• After 2025.0, FARO documented that a patch was in development for ScanNav picking and point-cloud transparency refresh. Treat 2025.0.20 as the current recommended install; confirm those two items on your hardware after upgrade rather than assuming every workaround disappeared.
• English user manual is current. Other-language manuals were flagged for language-quality review, with improved files promised in a later patch.

⚠️ Known issues still listed on the 2025 notes

• 🧭 ScanNav: some points outside a range may not be selectable. Workaround: switch to 3D view and finish the command.
• 👻 Transparency: changing point-cloud transparency may not redraw until you rotate or zoom slightly.
• 🚶 WalkTheRun + transparency: the cloud can vanish mid-command; it returns after you exit WalkTheRun and re-apply Transparency.

🔎 No public per-ticket changelog for 2025.0.20 alone has been posted. Do not list invented BOX-#### IDs on the product page — Google and buyers will check FARO’s knowledge base.

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💻 System requirements :

Item	Minimum	Recommended for production scans
🖥️ OS	Windows 10 64-bit (1903+) or Windows 11 64-bit	Windows 11 64-bit, current patches
📐 Host CAD	AutoCAD / Architecture / Civil 3D / Plant 3D 2023–2026, 64-bit	Same, already installed before the As-Built setup
☁️ Point clouds	Registered ReCap RCS / RCP; meshes OBJ, STL	RCP project on a local SSD, not a high-latency NAS during modeling
🧠 CPU	2.5 GHz	3–4 GHz, 4–8 cores
💾 RAM	8 GB	32 GB or more (64 GB if you keep SCENE / ReCap / CAD open together)
🎮 GPU	Autodesk’s minimum for your AutoCAD year	Autodesk recommended GPU (DirectX 12 class for heavy 3D)
💽 Disk	Installer space + project files	NVMe / SSD for clouds and working drawings

📌 As-Built does not lower Autodesk’s own spec. If AutoCAD 2025/2026 already wants 32 GB and a current GPU for point clouds, budget that first.

🔧 Install checklist

• 1️⃣ Install the target AutoCAD year first.
• 2️⃣ Use a Windows administrator account.
• 3️⃣ Pause antivirus / firewall for the setup, then turn them back on.
• 4️⃣ Activate with FARO License Manager / InTouch (the plugin will not run without the license service).
• 5️⃣ IT silent install: FARO documents /verysilent /norestart /SKIPLM only after License Manager is already present.

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💡 Interesting facts :

• 🏷️ The “2025” in the name is FARO’s product line — 2025.0.20 already speaks AutoCAD 2026.
• ⏳ Fifteen months between 2025.0 (June 2025) and 2025.0.20 (September 2026) means FARO is still patching this branch. That is good news if you want AutoCAD 2026 support without waiting for a future major version.
• 🧬 This plugin is the official successor of the entire PointSense family. Buying 2025 is not “PointSense plus extras” as separate SKUs anymore.
• 🏢 FARO is a business of AMETEK. As-Built is also sold as a Suite subscription (Modeler + AutoCAD plugin + Revit plugin). This listing is the AutoCAD plugin build 2025.0.20.
• 🔁 Suite / dual-plugin note: opening As-Built for AutoCAD and As-Built for Revit on the same machine at the same time can lock one license seat. Update License Manager via InTouch if that happens.
• 🌍 Multi-language UI; English manual is the reference copy after 2025.0.

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❓ FAQ :

Does 2025.0.20 work with AutoCAD 2026?
Yes. Official range is AutoCAD 2023–2026 and the same-year verticals.

Can I load raw FLS / E57 directly?
Production workflow is registered ReCap RCS/RCP. Convert in SCENE or ReCap first.

Is photogrammetry included?
No. Removed from version 2024 onward.

Can I drive a total station from this build?
No. TS Control / TS Design remain only in 2023.0 and older.

What did 2025.0.20 add on top of 2025.0?
It is the current maintenance installer (10 Sep 2026). Use it instead of 2025.0. FARO did not publish a separate public bug-ID list for .20 at release.

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🛒 Bottom line

Choose FARO As-Built for AutoCAD 2025.0.20 if you live in AutoCAD 2023–2026 on Windows 10/11 and need as-built 2D plans and 3D models from laser scans — buildings, MEP, plant steel, or civil work — with clash and deviation checks in the same session. Stay on 2023.x only if photo tools or total-station control are still part of the job.

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Native DWG from the cloud — finally usable on the next job.”

We run AutoCAD and Plant 3D every day. As-Built for AutoCAD 2025.0.20 sits on the ribbon, fits slices to the ReCap cloud, and leaves walls, pipes, and steel as real AutoCAD objects — not a mesh we have to redraw. Control Points being back on Building Plans saved our survey-to-plan step. Clash and deviation checks catch interferences before fabrication. It is still a heavy plugin and wants 32 GB plus an SSD, and we miss the old photo/TS tools, but for scan-to-CAD in 2023–2026 AutoCAD this is the seat we keep licensed.

Markus R., BIM / as-built lead, plant & civil office