How a BIM coordinator reviews a 3D model from a phone

How a BIM coordinator reviews a 3D model from a phone

You’ve built the model. It’s clean, it’s coordinated, and it lives on a workstation that never leaves the office. Meanwhile the building is going up, and the people who can see whether reality matches your model are standing on the slab with a phone in their hand — and no way to look at what you made.

That gap is the quiet failure of a lot of BIM work: the model is excellent and the field never sees it. This is how a BIM coordinator closes the loop — let the site open the model on a phone and flag what doesn’t match, without heavyweight software on site.

The model lives on a workstation; the site lives on a phone

Most coordination happens in a room the site team isn’t in. The model gets reviewed, clashed and signed off by people with the right licences and the right hardware — and the person physically watching the building rise is left outside the information flow. When reality and the model disagree, nobody on site has a fast way to say so.

The fix isn’t to put a workstation on site. It’s to let the field see the model where they already are: on the phone in their pocket.

View an IFC on mobile, on any phone

Upload an IFC and PinMy converts it to a lightweight 3D model that opens on a normal phone — no BIM workstation, no licence to install. As a mobile IFC viewer it’s deliberately simple: the field can orbit the model, find the area they’re standing in, and look at what was designed versus what’s actually built. This works within practical limits, and it’s the thing that finally gets your model in front of the people on the slab.

What this is — and what it deliberately is NOT

Be precise here, because it’s a credibility point with this audience. In PinMy, a pin on a 3D model is anchored to a point in 3D space — not to a model element. PinMy does not read element IDs or properties, does not do model versioning, and does not try to be a coordination platform or a common data environment. It will not replace Revit, and it is not your CDE.

What it is: a dated snapshot of the model used for field documentation — a way to put eyes on the geometry on site and pin observations against it. Think “a first, honest step into 3D on site,” not “BIM coordination in your pocket.” Saying that plainly is the point: it does one job and doesn’t pretend to do the others.

Drop a pin where reality disagrees

Standing where the duct should be, you open the model, orbit to that spot, and tap to drop a pin on the 3D model on site. The pin marks the point in space where the field has something to say — “this run clashes with the tray that’s already up,” “this opening isn’t where the model shows it.” Reality and the design now share one place.

Photo, voice or text on the point

On each pin, add a photo of what’s actually built, a voice note (auto-transcribed across 20+ languages, up to 30 seconds Free / three minutes Premium), or a quick text. The coordinator back at the desk gets the field’s observation anchored to the right spot in the model — not a vague email saying “something’s off near grid C.”

Free and Premium: who can open what

The 3D viewer works across plans, including Free, within limits. And a Free user can open an IFC or a video shared by a Premium teammate, within Free limits — so a coordinator on a paid plan can hand the model to the whole site crew without everyone needing the top tier. The barrier to getting the model in front of the field is intentionally low.

Assign it, and it lands on the board

A flagged mismatch only matters if someone acts on it. @mention the right person and assign the pin, and it drops onto a Kanban board — To-do, In Progress, Done — built from your pins. Resolved items dim on the model and the plan. It’s the same capture-and-hand-off flow as a site walkthrough told in pins and a day in the life of a site supervisor, now against 3D geometry.

FAQ

Can I view an IFC on mobile without BIM software? Yes. Upload the IFC and PinMy converts it to a lightweight 3D model that opens on a normal phone — no workstation, no licence. It’s a viewer for field documentation, not an authoring or coordination tool.

Are pins linked to BIM elements? No. A pin is anchored to a point in 3D space, not to a model element. PinMy doesn’t read element IDs or properties and doesn’t do model versioning — it’s a dated snapshot for documenting what the field sees.

Does a Free user need their own model to view one? A Free user can open an IFC or video shared by a Premium teammate, within Free limits, so a coordinator can put the model in front of the whole crew without everyone on a paid plan.

What PinMy is NOT

PinMy is not BIM coordination, not a common data environment, and not a replacement for Revit or your authoring tools. It doesn’t read element data, doesn’t version models, and a pin marks a point in space, never an element. The web PDF report is useful but still maturing, and pricing lives only on the pricing page. What PinMy does is honest and useful: get your model in front of the field on a phone, and let them pin reality against it.

Put your model in the field’s hands

Upload one IFC and see what the site flags when they can finally look at the model.

• See how it works: pinmy.co
• Book a 15-minute demo: tidycal.com/pinmy