New technologies have developed around the capture capture of existing buildings in a digital environment.  Laser Scanning comes first to mind, and now Photofly from Autodesk, however, these seem to best address the exterior of the buildings and are used in particular circumstances that warrant them.   Now comes the backpack scanner, and thanks to Erik Lewis and his blog Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad BIM for bringing it to my attention and I’ll quote him here:

“Incredible.  Between PKNail and emergent technology like this, I see a real future in gathering existing facilities information into BIM databases…”

Laser Backpack Creates Instant 3D Models

Very cool.