Pin on 3D models: annotate IFC files from your phone

A 3D model you can actually use on site

You finally have the building in 3D. The problem? The model lives on a workstation in the office, opened by the one person who knows the software. Meanwhile the people who spend the day inside the building — the site supervisor, the contractor, the installer — carry a phone, not a CAD station.

So the model and the field stay disconnected. Issues still get documented the old way: forty loose photos, a note in WhatsApp, something half-remembered at nine p.m.

PinMy closes that gap. Now you can drop pins directly on a 3D IFC model, from your phone — the same way you already pin on PDFs and site photos. The person standing inside the building documents what they see, on the model, in seconds.

How it works, on site

No new software to learn. It’s the flow you already know, now in 3D:

1. Upload your IFC file to a PinMy project.
2. Open the 3D model on your phone or tablet and move around it.
3. Tap the exact point on the model where the issue is.
4. Leave a voice note, a photo, a video, or text — right there.

The pin stays on that spot. Reopen it later — you or a teammate — and the issue is exactly where you left it, with all its context. No digging through folders, no “which file was that?”.

And because you can talk instead of type, documenting takes seconds. You speak, drop the pin, and keep walking. The voice note transcribes itself, so later you can search and copy it as text.

What you can do today

Not a roadmap promise — this is what’s on your phone right now:

• Pins on a 3D IFC model, with photo, voice note, text, and video on the exact point.
• A PDF attached inside a comment, when a pin needs a document next to it.
• Voice transcription in 20+ languages: your spoken note becomes searchable, copyable text.
• Threads, @mentions, and task status, so every finding gets followed up instead of lost.
• The same capture flow you already use on PDFs and photos — nothing new to learn, now in 3D.
• iOS, Android, and web, on the device you already carry.

Why your phone can handle a heavy model

Raw IFC files are heavy — the kind of thing that usually chokes a phone or needs a workstation. PinMy does that heavy lifting for you, behind the scenes, so the model opens fast and moves smoothly on a normal phone or tablet. You don’t think about file sizes or formats. You open it and start pinning.

That’s the part that makes 3D usable in the field, instead of only in a demo on a powerful computer in the office.

A dated snapshot of what you found

Here’s the right way to think about a 3D project in PinMy: it’s a dated snapshot — a photograph of the building’s state on a given day, with the exact spot, the voice, and the image of what you saw.

Inside a project the geometry doesn’t change after upload, so your pins stay exactly where you placed them. No drift, no guessing.

Let’s be clear about what this is and isn’t. PinMy is a visual capture-and-collaboration tool for 3D — not a replacement for the heavyweight BIM software your specialist runs in the office. We’re not trying to take over that workflow. What we do is let the person in the field record what’s really there, on the model, in a way that holds up later — the same documentation-and-accountability job PinMy already does on plans and photos.

No CAD, no Revit licence, no BIM training

This is built for the field, not the office. A site supervisor, a contractor, or a retrofit installer can open the model and start commenting in minutes — no CAD software, no Revit licence, no BIM training. If you can use PinMy on a PDF, you already know how to use it in 3D.

Where it helps

• Site supervision. Walk the model on site and pin what doesn’t match, visit by visit, with a visual history.
• Refurbishment and retrofit. Record the real state of a space against the model, before and after work. No arguments about how it was.
• Installations. Mark where equipment should go — or where it actually went — on the 3D model.
• Handover and documentation. A traceable, dated record of findings tied to their exact point in the building.

Built from a real question

This started as a real customer question: a contact in wireless and telecom asked whether their team could work with IFC files in PinMy. We built it, the engineering was sound, and the capability turned out genuinely useful — so we shipped it to learn where the real demand sits.

We’d rather ship something simple and find out than guess from a slide in a deck. That’s how most of PinMy got built: from a real field moment, not a feature checklist.

Your data, in the EU

You work with sensitive information: plans, 3D models, sometimes projects under confidentiality. PinMy is hosted in the European Union and is GDPR-compliant. Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest. We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.

Start free, no card

You can start today on the free plan — no card, no commitment. Upload an IFC, drop your first pin on the model, and see if it fits how you work. It’s the fastest way to find out.

Want to see the same capture flow on 2D first? Read how it works for a site supervisor, or how to turn a walk into a site visit report.

Try it free · Book a 20-minute demo