Open an IFC, a steel model or a site scan on any phone. Measure it, mark it up, and stand it on the real site at full size. Send a link — they open it in their browser, no app and no account.
Most viewers stop at the screen. ARfield puts the building in front of you at full size — on the stand, in the boardroom, or on the councillor's phone — so the questions get asked while they're still cheap to answer.
Tap two points, get the real dimension in metres or millimetres. Check what was built against what was drawn — one-handed, on a phone, standing in it.
Touch a wall and see what it is — its type, and whatever else your model records: family, level, tag. Read straight out of the IFC, not guessed.
Place the model at true scale through the phone camera and walk around it. Android and iPhone, from the browser.
Drop a note on the actual wall or beam, not on a screenshot. It stays pinned there as you move around, so nobody argues about which one you meant.
Fade the building to see structure behind finishes, hide a storey to look at the one below, or cut the top off entirely — the way you'd catch a clash before it's built.
Capture the view with your measurements and notes on it, then share to WhatsApp or email in two taps.
Fade the finishes and the structure appears. Hide a storey to look at the floor below, or isolate just the columns. The floors and element types come from the model itself, so the list matches what your engineer actually modelled.
No new modelling software, no plugin, no change to how you work.
IFC — exported natively by Revit, Archicad and Vectorworks. Take the client through the scheme on their own phone, or stand it on the site.
IFC + STEP/IGES — open the architect's model and the fabricator's steel in the same tool. Identify a member, check a dimension, pin a query.
Place proposed works on the actual site at true scale, for community meetings and council presentations where a drawing wouldn't land.
Give the client a link to walk through the building they've just paid for — levels and element data included. One line on the final account, recovered as a disbursement.
There are two kinds of tool already doing part of this, and we will happily name them. Free BIM viewers — Dalux, BIMx, Trimble Connect — show you a model for nothing and are genuinely good at it. AR apps — ARki, Morpholio, SketchUp Viewer — put a model in the room, and some are cheaper than we are. Neither one does the other's job.
| Dalux / BIMx Free BIM viewers | ARki / Morpholio AR apps | ARfield | |
|---|---|---|---|
| View, measure, comment, share a link | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Full-scale AR on the actual site | No | Yes | Yes |
| Opens your IFC straight from Revit or Archicad | Yes | No — wants FBX/GLB | Yes |
| Your client has to install an app | No | Yes | No — just a link |
| Steel & mechanical CAD (STEP, IGES) too | BIM only | No | Both, one tool |
| Tap an element for its type, level and tag | Yes | No | Yes |
| Survey point clouds | Rarely | No | Yes |
| Converted on your device — never uploaded | Uploaded to their cloud | Uploaded | Stays with you |
| Your practice's brand on the client view | Theirs | Theirs | Yours |
| Billed in Rands, supported locally | USD / EUR | USD | Yes |
Read down the two middle columns and the gap is the whole product: the BIM viewers can't put the building on the site, and the AR apps can't open your IFC — and they make your client install something.
Comparison based on each product's published features as of August 2026 — check the vendor's own site before relying on it, features change.
ARfield converts your file inside your own browser. Cloud viewers have to upload the model to open it. Yours only goes anywhere if you deliberately share it — which matters when the scheme is unbuilt and confidentiality is your professional duty.
Email or WhatsApp us an IFC or STEP from a live job. We will open it and send back a link you can try on site — no charge, no pitch attached, and we delete the file afterwards unless you ask us not to.
Usually back to you the same working day.
Everyone you send a model to views it free, forever, with no account. You only pay for the people creating and managing models.
JLR Dev is not VAT registered, so these are the prices you pay. White-label licensing on request. See full pricing → · Start with one project →
Yes — through IFC, which Revit exports natively (File → Export → IFC), and the same for
Archicad and Vectorworks. Revit's own .rvt is a closed Autodesk format that
needs their paid cloud service to read, so IFC is the proper route rather than a
workaround. Element names, types, levels and tags all come through.
Conversion happens inside your browser — the file is not uploaded to open it. It only leaves your machine if you deliberately create a share link, and then only the converted view is stored, not your source file. See the privacy page.
We test against real architect-issued buildings, not samples. A 73 MB IFC converts and shares. Large models are compressed roughly 9–16× on the way through, so what your client downloads on mobile data is a fraction of the original.
No. They open a link in whatever browser is already on their phone or laptop. They can view, measure and take snapshots without ever signing up, and that stays free.
Straight browser GPS is accurate to roughly 2–50 m, which is right for "walk to about here" and wrong for setting out. We say so in the app rather than letting you find out. Precise placement against surveyed control points is on the roadmap.
If you only need to look at a model on a laptop, use one of them — Dalux's is genuinely good and free. Pay for this when you need the building on site at full size, need the fabricator's STEP file open next to the architect's IFC, need point clouds, or need the model not to be uploaded to somebody's cloud.
Yes — ARki Pro works out around R340 a month, which is less than our Solo tier, and it does AR well. Two things it won't do. It wants an FBX or a GLB, so somebody has to convert your Revit or Archicad model first, and the BIM data is gone by the time it arrives — you can't tap a wall and see its type and level. And your client has to install it, on an iPhone. We take the IFC straight out of your authoring tool and your client just opens a link on whatever phone they already have.
Not the .rvt itself — that format is closed and undocumented, so nobody
outside Autodesk reads it properly. Export an IFC, which Revit and Archicad both do in a
couple of clicks, and that is the file we read. Same for .dwg and
.dwfx: neither carries usable 3D building data. For steel and mechanical
work, send STEP.
Start with one project at R650 rather than a subscription. If it doesn't earn its place on that job, there's nothing to cancel.