St. Basil’s Church is more than a landmark in downtown Toronto—it’s a testament to nearly 170 years of history, architectural evolution, and academic tradition. Faced with fragmented documentation, undocumented modifications, and a need for accurate as-builts, the University of St. Michael’s College partnered with reality capture specialists iScano and leveraged the power of Cintoo to digitally transform and preserve the site.
Through a collaborative, owner-led approach to heritage documentation, the project demonstrated how all stakeholders can go beyond traditional scan-to-BIM workflows to support efficient preservation, reduce ambiguity, and ensure long-term data ownership.
The Challenge: Restoring a Complex Heritage Site Without Clear Records
St. Basil’s Church and the adjoining Clover Hill complex had limited original documentation and a long history of undocumented modifications. For Peter Skrepichuk, Planning Coordinator at the University of St. Michael’s College, each new capital project meant starting from scratch—hand-measuring dimensions, consolidating conflicting drawings, and making educated guesses about hidden structures.
Previous renovations had relied on assumptions due to inaccessible or unknown structural details, including a concealed vaulted ceiling and timber trusses hidden above the nave. Inconsistent or missing as-built drawings made it difficult to scope or budget future work. Moreover, legacy data was scattered across paper archives, outdated drawings, and unstructured digital files.
“There are no drawings from each of the phases these pictures represent. We had to rely heavily on images, newspaper reports, and letters to piece together what was actually built,” said Peter during the webinar. “Every time someone wanted to do work—re-roofing, flooring, plaster repairs—they had to redraw everything from scratch.”
The Solution: Multi-Modal Scanning for Full-Scope Documentation
iScano deployed a multi-modal terrestrial laser scanning strategy, completing over 540 scans of the interior and exterior over five to six days. This included scanning hard-to-reach attic spaces and voids behind plaster vaulting that hadn’t been seen since 1918. Sebastian Graterol, Director at iScano, emphasized the importance of not just capturing data, but using it in a way that empowers long-term value: “This wasn’t just a scan-to-BIM workflow. It was about enabling Peter and his team to find longevity in the dataset beyond scanning and into strategic planning.”
Scan data was uploaded into Cintoo and converted into high-resolution 3D meshes. The mesh format was essential for viewing the vaulted ceiling structure and historic roof trusses, especially for areas where traditional BIM tools failed to capture the full spatial complexity.
Cintoo enabled workflows that included:
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Remote inspection of hidden architectural features, such as concealed timber structures above the nave
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Real-time collaboration with scanning teams using annotations
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Overlaying BIM models to as-built conditions to plan progressive restoration
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Sharing cropped scans and annotated views with engineers and contractors
Workflow in Action: Owner-Led Heritage Documentation
One of the core advantages of this project was its owner-led nature. Peter retained full access and control over the scan data inside Cintoo, enabling him to delay or modularize BIM conversion depending on project need. As he explained during the webinar, “We don’t have to go back to site every time. We can send a section or measurement straight from the scan, and that becomes the reliable source of truth.”
Using Cintoo, Peter could:
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Tag, annotate, and segment scans for specific restoration scopes
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Maintain data accuracy to 3.5–4mm across the site
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Reference mesh data before consulting historical drawings
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Track revisions through modular scan updates
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Provide fast, precise visualizations to non-technical stakeholders
Sebastian noted, “When you work with an academic institution like this, it’s not just about delivering a model. It’s about respecting the historical context, the fragmented documentation, and the long-term mission of preservation.”
“Even today, we discover architectural details that had been concealed. Without these scans, some of these spaces would remain completely unknown,” Peter added.
Technical Insights and Outcomes
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Scan scope: 541 scan positions over 5–6 days
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Scan types: High-resolution terrestrial laser scans with some SLAM trials for rapid documentation
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Accuracy: ~3.5mm
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Software interoperability: Compatibility with Revit, AutoCAD, Navisworks through scan segmentation and export tools
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Visualization: High-density mesh model enabled full-view inspection, down to masonry details and structural supports
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Annotation-based planning: Enabled real-time communication across departments and with external contractors
By leveraging Cintoo, the university avoided redundant modeling cycles and reduced site visits, while enabling documentation to serve multiple purposes: capital planning, restoration, heritage research, and stakeholder reporting.
Communication & Decision-Making
According to Peter, using Cintoo became essential for communicating with internal and external partners. “If we weren’t using Cintoo, we’d have to go to site for every decision. With this, I can work from the office or at home, and get accurate, up-to-date information immediately.”
Even inaccessible attic spaces and voids could be visualized in detail. During the webinar, the project team demonstrated how Cintoo allowed them to view the reverse side of plaster vaults and make critical decisions about structural support work. These insights were previously impossible with only historical photos and fragmented drawings.
“We discovered the original timber roof structure was still intact and supporting the 1918 plaster ceiling,” Peter noted. “The scan data helped us understand how these two layers interacted structurally—and that was critical for planning future work.”
The ability to integrate scan data directly into facility workflows helped bridge gaps between capital planners, restoration experts, and internal staff. As Sebastian described it, "How do we make this data and information not as static as we usually do? And this is where the linchpin becomes platforms and platforms that do work, and in this case, it was Cintoo. Cintoo allows us to become more dynamic and feed more into the platform."
Strategic Preservation Enabled by Data Ownership
For St. Michael’s, long-term data ownership was non-negotiable. The university ensured all scan data was retained in Canadian-hosted cloud storage and backed up independently. This allowed them to:
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Reuse existing scan data for future BIM modeling
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Avoid rescanning costs and disruptions to heritage sites
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Share secure, browser-based links with architects and contractors
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Build a historical digital archive for future scholars and planners
Sebastian summed up the value of this shift during the webinar: “It’s not just about having the model. It’s about having a living dataset—one we can revisit, update, and use as our source of truth for decades to come.”
Conclusion
St. Basil’s is more than a case study in digital scanning. It is a new model for how academic and cultural institutions can lead preservation through data control, precision scanning, and collaborative planning. By combining iScano’s expert reality capture services with Cintoo’s visualization and collaboration capabilities, the project enabled a historically informed, technologically sophisticated restoration that serves both present needs and future generations.