Every Tone Commission of substance starts with a LIDAR survey. Here is what the technology actually does, why the studio specifies it, and what it changes for the project.
What LIDAR is
LIDAR is a survey technology that maps a three-dimensional space at millimetre accuracy by firing a controlled grid of laser pulses across every surface in the room. The output is a point cloud — millions of measured coordinates — that resolves into a complete digital twin of the property: every wall, every alcove, every ceiling height, every existing service position, captured exactly.
It is the same technology used in significant architectural commissions and historic-building conservation. It is precise enough to detect a wall that is one degree out of plumb across a four-metre run, and to record it permanently.
Why the studio uses it
Most renovation projects fail at the brief, not the build — but a substantial second category fails at the survey. Tape-measured plans are unreliable in any property older than thirty years; even careful measurement misses the small geometric truths that compound across a Commission. A wall that is forty millimetres out at the top translates into joinery that does not sit, ceiling lights that do not align with floor reference points, and trim that has to be cut on site to mask the discrepancy.
LIDAR removes the survey as a source of failure. The studio works from the digital twin. Every joinery decision, every built-in, every spatial calculation, every plumbing alteration, every electrical run is designed against guaranteed-accurate data.
What it changes for the project
Three things change.
Joinery fits. Bespoke pieces are manufactured to an exact-tolerance brief and arrive on site to a Commission that has already accommodated the room's actual geometry. Site-trimming is the exception, not the rule.
Decisions are made before the wall is opened. Where structural alterations are part of the Commission, LIDAR plus the structural survey lets the studio resolve the design completely before any disruptive work starts. The build phase begins from a fully resolved design, not a design that is still being revised on site.
The schedule holds. Most Commission overruns come from late-stage design changes triggered by site discoveries. LIDAR shrinks that category to almost nothing. The schedule the client is given at contract is the schedule that delivers.
What you get out of it
The LIDAR survey produces three deliverables for the client. Millimetre-accurate AutoCAD plans. The complete point cloud (a usable record of the property at a point in time, valuable beyond this Commission). And a project geometry resolved well enough to support the Design and Specification stage's complete-and-costed promise.
The plans are yours to keep regardless of whether the Commission proceeds to the Design and Specification stage. They are a record of your property to a precision very few homeowners will ever otherwise commission.
Where it stops mattering
For a project that is purely a furniture-and-finishes refresh in a recently-built property where the spatial structure is accurate and known, LIDAR is overhead the project does not need. The studio is candid about this — Discovery is where the survey scope is decided alongside the design scope, and not every Commission needs full LIDAR.
For Commissions that involve any structural change, period-property work, refurbishment, joinery on a serious scale, or whole-home work, LIDAR is the foundation that makes the rest of the methodology work.