Facilities and property operations
Want defects found early and repairs scheduled in the maintenance system they already use.
Facilities and inspection / Visual Inspection
Automated visual inspection for buildings and their equipment
Facade surveys, roof walks and plant room checks produce thousands of photos that someone has to review by hand. Agnotic Technologies builds automated visual inspection that sorts drone and camera images, flags likely defects for a qualified reviewer, and turns each confirmed defect into a work order or a condition report entry.
Drone and camera
Capture planned by asset
Human review
A qualified person confirms
Work orders
Confirmed defects only
Trusted by global innovators
Industry Overview
What is automated visual inspection for buildings?
Automated visual inspection for buildings is software that reviews drone, fixed camera and handheld photos of facades, roofs and equipment, flags likely defects such as cracks, spalling and corrosion, and routes them to a qualified reviewer. Agnotic Technologies builds it so only confirmed defects become work orders or condition report entries, each with its image evidence.
Who it is for
Who uses building visual inspection?
The same image can matter to several teams. Each one needs a different view of it.
Facade and envelope consultants
Review survey images and sign condition findings, often under a local facade rule.
Fire and life safety leads
Track penetrations through rated walls and floors that need fire stopping.
Asset owners and portfolio managers
Need a consistent condition baseline across buildings to plan capital work.
Inspection and drone service startups
Build a product around survey review and reporting for their own clients.
Industry Challenges
Why do photo-based building inspections stall?
Capture is rarely the bottleneck. Review and follow-up are.
One facade flight returns more images than an engineer can review before the report is due.
Photos are filed by date, not by elevation, floor or roof zone, so a defect cannot be found again on the next survey.
Findings live in a report PDF and never reach the maintenance system, so the repair is never scheduled.
The same crack is reported in three surveys in a row with no record of whether it has grown.
Thermal and visual images of the same roof area are stored apart, so wet insulation and visible membrane damage are never linked.
Model output is treated as a finding, and nobody records who looked at it.
Defect to action
How does each building defect move from image to action?
Our starting map for a building inspection project. The defect list changes with your portfolio; the rule that a qualified person confirms a flag before anything is filed does not.
| Defect type | Capture method | What the model flags | Who confirms | What it feeds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facade crack | Drone elevation passes, rope access or close-range photos | Linear features in masonry, render or concrete, located on the elevation | Facade engineer or qualified exterior wall inspector | Condition report entry and comparison with the previous survey |
| Spalling and loose masonry | Drone close-up passes; handheld photos at lower floors | Missing or detached surface material and exposed reinforcement | Facade engineer, with urgent items escalated the same day | Unsafe condition record and a work order for protection or repair |
| Roof membrane damage | Drone overhead and oblique roof flights; thermal survey where wet insulation is suspected | Punctures, splits, blisters, ponding, lifted seams and thermal anomalies | Roofing contractor or building surveyor | Roof work order located on the roof plan |
| Corrosion on steel and plant | Fixed cameras or handheld photos of rooftop plant, railings, lintels and supports | Rust staining, section loss and coating breakdown | Maintenance engineer | CMMS work order against the asset |
| Missing fire stopping | Handheld photos of service penetrations above ceilings and in risers | Open gaps around pipes, cables and ducts through rated walls or floors | Fire safety engineer or competent fire stopping inspector | Fire safety remediation log and work order |
Our Approach
How should a facilities team approach automated inspection?
Three decisions shape the build, and we make them before any model is trained.
Plan capture by asset, not by device
Facades, roofs, plant and interior penetrations each need their own capture method and image naming, so every photo ties back to an elevation, roof zone or asset ID.
Let the model sort and people decide
The model ranks images by likely defect so reviewers see the right ones first. A qualified person confirms, rejects or reclassifies every flag, and that decision is recorded.
Close the loop in your maintenance system
Confirmed defects create work orders or report entries in the CMMS or CAFM you already run, with the image, location and reviewer attached.
Capabilities
What do we build for automated visual inspection?
How to build automated visual inspection for buildings: modules that follow one defect from capture to repair.
Capture planning
Flight and shot lists per elevation, roof zone and plant area, with naming rules so every image lands in the right place.
Image intake and location
Batch upload from drones, fixed cameras and phones, with each image tied to a building, elevation, floor or asset.
Defect detection models
Models trained on your defect classes, with a separate confidence threshold per class agreed with your reviewers.
Review queue
Reviewers see the flagged image, the model's reason and the same spot from the previous survey, then confirm, reject or reclassify.
Survey-to-survey comparison
Confirmed defects carry forward, so the next survey shows whether a crack or corroded section has changed.
Work order and report output
Confirmed defects become work orders in your CMMS or CAFM, or entries in a condition report, with image evidence attached.
Thermal and visual pairing
Thermal and visual images of the same roof or facade area linked, so a reviewer sees both before deciding.
Privacy controls
People and vehicle plates captured by chance are blurred before images reach reviewers or reports.
How It Works
How does one image become a work order?
The review workflow we build. The model is one step in it, not the whole system.
Capture
A drone flight, fixed camera schedule or handheld walk-through follows the capture plan for that asset.
01
1
Ingest and locate
Images are checked for quality and tied to a building, elevation, roof zone or asset before analysis.
02
2
Flag
Models mark likely defects with a class, a location in the image and a confidence score.
03
3
Review
A qualified reviewer confirms, rejects or reclassifies each flag; urgent conditions are escalated straight away.
04
4
Act
Confirmed defects create a work order or a report entry with the image, location and reviewer attached.
05
5
Re-check
On the next survey, open defects are shown at the same location so change can be judged.
06
6
Engineering Stack
Which capture devices and systems are involved?
Chosen around the buildings, contractors and maintenance systems you already have.
Capture
Small drones flown under FAA Part 107Fixed cameras on roofs and plant areasHandheld phones and tabletsThermal cameras for roof and envelope surveys
Detection
Image classification and segmentation modelsConfidence thresholds per defect classRetraining from reviewer decisionsBatch inference in the cloud or on premises
Facilities systems
CMMSCAFMFloor plans, roof plans and BIMDocument and report storage
Platform
Role-based access by building and contractorImage storage with retention rulesAudit log of reviewer decisionsAWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud
Measured Impact
What should a building inspection program measure?
Measures that show whether review and repair keep up with capture.
Review backlog
Images waiting for a reviewer
Flagged images not yet confirmed or rejected, by building and defect class.
Confirmation rate
Flags a reviewer accepted
Shows where thresholds or training data need work.
Defect to work order
Time to a scheduled repair
From confirmation to a scheduled job in the CMMS.
Repeat defects
Seen across surveys
Defects still open at the next survey, and whether they changed.
Use Cases
Where do facilities teams start?
First releases scoped to one building type or one defect family.
01
Facade survey triage
Sorting drone facade images so engineers review likely defects first.
02
Roof condition survey
Membrane damage and ponding flagged and placed on the roof plan.
03
Rooftop plant corrosion
Recurring photos of plant and supports compared survey to survey.
04
Fire stopping audit
Penetration photos reviewed and tracked to remediation.
05
Portfolio condition baseline
The same defect classes applied across every building.
06
Post-storm roof check
A quick survey and review after severe weather.
Integrations
Which systems does visual inspection connect to?
Where images come from and where confirmed defects go.
Work orders
CMMS
Buildings and assets
CAFM
Capture
Drone flight and image librariesFixed camera systems
Location
Floor plans and BIM
Condition reports
Property inspection app
Reports and evidence
Document management
Compliance-First Development Services Backed by Global Standards
We build secure, scalable products designed for privacy, interoperability, and regulatory readiness from day one across every sector we serve.
General Data Protection Regulation
Implement lawful consent flows, data minimization, and secure processing for global data privacy.
Information Security Management
Adhering to the international gold standard for managing information security risks.
Our Edge
Why Global Leaders Choose Us
We combine deep technical expertise with industry-specific knowledge to deliver solutions that aren't just functional, but transformational.
Enterprise-Grade Security
We implement rigorous security protocols and compliance standards (HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2) across all industrial solutions to protect sensitive data.
High-Performance Scaling
Our architectures are built to handle massive data loads and user bases, keeping performance steady whether you're serving ten or ten million.
Accelerated Time-to-Market
Using our suite of internal tools and proven frameworks, we cut setup work so your first release reaches users sooner.
Embedded AI Integration
Beyond simple wrappers, we build deep-learning integrations and predictive analytics directly into the core of your industry-specific workflows.
Engagement Model
How does an automated visual inspection engagement run?
Automated visual inspection services from Agnotic start small. It depends on scope; we agree a fixed first release on the scoping call.
01
Scoping call
We review your portfolio, defect classes, capture methods and the maintenance systems that should receive findings.
02
Label existing surveys
Your reviewers label a set of past survey images with us, which fixes the defect classes and the review rules.
03
Fixed-scope first release
Intake, detection for agreed defect classes, the review queue and work order output for one building type.
04
Extend
More defect classes, thermal pairing and more buildings, retrained from reviewer decisions.
05
Support
Model monitoring, threshold changes and new integrations under agreed change control.
Facts and sources
Rules that shape building inspection software
Drone and facade rules the capture plan and review queue are built around. Local rules outside New York City differ.
Under FAA Part 107, a small drone may fly higher than 400 feet above ground level only while it stays within a 400-foot radius of a structure and no higher than 400 feet above the structure's uppermost limit.
Source: 14 CFR 107.51(b) (eCFR)A small drone may not be flown over a person unless that person is directly participating in the operation, is under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle, or the flight meets one of the operational categories in Part 107 Subpart D.
Source: 14 CFR 107.39 (eCFR)In New York City, owners of buildings higher than six stories must have exterior walls and appurtenances inspected every five years and file a technical facade report; the inspection may only be performed by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector.
Source: NYC Department of Buildings, Facade Inspection and Safety ProgramA New York City facade report classifies conditions as Safe, Safe with a Repair and Maintenance Program (SWARMP) or Unsafe, and owners must repair unsafe conditions within 90 days of filing the report.
Source: NYC Department of Buildings, Facade Inspection and Safety ProgramASTM E2018-24 states that, at a minimum, a property condition report consistent with the guide needs a new walk-through survey, interviews, and a review of building and fire department records for recorded material violations.
Source: ASTM E2018-24, Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments
Voice of success
We don't just build products; we forge lasting partnerships. See how we've helped industry leaders transform their vision into technical reality.
“I can clearly see how Agnotic has a unique way of handling end-to-end development. They are always active on quick chat and provide support quickly.”
Aaron Phelan
Founder, Benchmark
“Agnotic combines deep technical expertise with strong domain knowledge. They understand the business context, anticipate challenges, and make collaboration smooth and effective.”
John Pasmore
Founder, Latimer
“Agnotic is the best technical team we evaluated. Their engineering excellence made our work dramatically easier and allowed us to stay focused on what matters most for maternal care outcomes. They took full ownership of the technical execution, and we are always happy to continue working together.”
Kim Smith
Founder, My Lauren
Related pages
Related inspection and facilities software
This page covers building condition inspection from images. These pages cover the tools and patterns around it.
Property inspection app
Mobile condition assessments with photos, AI image analysis and defect routing to maintenance.
CMMS software
Maintenance management and work orders, where confirmed defects become scheduled repairs.
CAFM software
Facilities, space and asset management for the buildings being inspected.
Custom facilities management software development
Asset, maintenance and inspection workflows built for multi-site facilities teams.
Construction safety compliance vision
The camera, edge inference and model pipeline behind site safety monitoring.
Quality inspection vision AI
Visual inspection of manufactured parts on a production line.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The software sorts images and flags likely defects; a qualified person confirms each one. Where a rule requires a licensed inspector, such as a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector for New York City facade reports, that person still makes and signs the finding.
Usually, yes. Past survey images are often the best training set once your reviewers label them and they are tied to elevations, roof zones or assets. We check image quality and coverage on the scoping call.
Manufacturing vision inspects identical parts on a line in fixed lighting, in real time. Building inspection deals with one-off surfaces, weather and changing light, and reviews images in batches after a survey, so location tagging and human review matter more than cycle time.
Common starting classes are facade cracks, spalling, roof membrane damage, corrosion on steel and plant, and open service penetrations that suggest missing fire stopping. We agree the classes with your reviewers and add a class only when there are enough labelled examples.
Yes. A confirmed defect creates a work order or a condition report entry in your existing CMMS or CAFM, with the image, location, defect class and reviewer attached, and the status comes back when the repair closes.
The number of defect classes, how much labelled imagery exists, the capture methods in scope, the number of buildings, and the CMMS, CAFM and reporting integrations. We explain these drivers on the scoping call instead of quoting a fixed price.
It depends on scope; we agree a fixed first release on the scoping call. A typical first release covers one building type and a few defect classes, tested against surveys your reviewers have already completed.
Yes. Inspection and drone service startups often start with intake, a review queue and report output for one defect family, then add detection models as their labelled image library grows.
Industries