Point Elevation is one of the ways Floor Elevation measures your slab. You give Dusty a list of specific locations — called measurement points — and the FieldPrinter 2 drives to each one and records an exact elevation reading there. Use it when you need named, precise numbers at known spots, rather than a general picture of the whole floor.
Point Elevation is part of Floor Elevation (Beta). The companion mode is Area Elevation, which fills a region you draw with a grid of readings to build a heatmap. You can use both modes on the same layout.
When to use Point Elevation
Point Elevation is the right choice when the downstream work needs specific values at named locations:
- Equipment foot and baseplate leveling
- Panel or prefab fit-up at known corners
- Column lines and other reference points
- Precision compliance checks and floor-grinding plans that work from named survey points
If instead you want a visual read of where the slab is high or low across a whole region, use Area Elevation for the heatmap.
Point Elevation vs. Area Elevation
| Point Elevation | Area Elevation | |
|---|---|---|
| What you provide | A CSV of specific points, imported to your layout | A rectangular area you draw on the iPad |
| What Dusty records | One elevation value at each defined point | A grid of readings across the whole area |
| Best for | Named, precise readings at known spots | A general picture of slab condition across a region |
| Main outputs | Point PDF and Point CSV | Area (heatmap) PDF and Area CSV |
How Point Elevation works
1. Prepare your points and publish them. Define your measurement points, add them to a Dusty layout as a CSV, and set that CSV file to be a measure layer in the Portal. On the iPad, measurement points show in purple on the layout.
2. Set up in the field. Level the tracker on a stable tripod, open the Setup panel on the iPad, toggle Measure Elevation on, and complete every Setup step until each has a green check mark. Completing the Verify Station Location step is required before you can collect elevation.
3. Select points and start. On the iPad, select the points you want to record — all of them, or a subset — and tap Start. The FieldPrinter drives to each point and records its elevation, updating each point with its measured value as it completes.
4. Handle obstructions and restation as needed. If a point can't be reached because of an obstruction, skip it and come back to it after restationing. On jobs that span more than one tracker station, each new station must share at least one control point with a previous station so the cloud can stitch your data together; the iPad warns you if that overlap is missing.
For the full step-by-step field workflow, see How to Use Floor Elevation (Beta). This article is a conceptual overview, not a step-by-step guide.
Viewing and downloading your results
After the FieldPrinter finishes and the iPad uploads, Portal processes the data and makes your results available in the Elevation tab. Point results appear on their own Points view (separate from the Area heatmap), where you can review the point elevation summary and tune the report before downloading.
Point Elevation produces three downloadable reports:
| Report | What it contains | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Point PDF | Each measurement point plotted on the layout drawing, labeled with its name and elevation (e.g., FF08 −7/16"). Header shows control points used, lowest/highest elevation, reference point, and total points. |
Sharing a marked-up plan so a contractor can walk and verify specific locations. |
| Point CSV | Full numerical data per point: area, point name, point X/Y, measured Z (in decimal feet and in feet-inches), reference point, stationing number, and control used. | Engineering or downstream analysis needing decimal-precision Z with X/Y and stationing context. |
| Point CSV for Autodesk Point Layout | A five-column file (Point Name, Point X, Point Y, Measured Z, Description) formatted for direct import into AutoCAD via Autodesk Point Layout — no reformatting needed. | Pulling Dusty elevation data straight into a CAD workflow (grinding instructions, equipment layouts). |
All three are downloaded from the Elevation tab: select Points, open the download menu, and choose the report.
Report settings that affect your point values
These options appear before you download and change how elevations are calculated and displayed:
- Units — fractional inches or millimeters. Applies to both PDFs and CSVs.
- Display precision (inches only) — rounds values to 1/32", 1/16", 1/8", or 1/4".
-
Reference point — the baseline every Z value is measured from:
- Highest — all other points read as negative numbers.
- Midpoint — points above the midpoint are positive, below are negative.
- Lowest — all other points read as positive numbers.
Changing the reference after a session does not require re-measuring; Portal recalculates from the same underlying data.
Current limitations (Beta)
- Point Elevation does not print elevation values directly on the slab as a same-day output. The reports are digital first. To print elevation numbers on the floor, download the report from the Dusty Portal as Autodesk Compatible CSV, open the file and copy the Z values in the Description column, save and upload the CSV into the Portal, publish the Dusty file, and print the results on a second FieldPrinter pass.
- It does not generate an ACI-format FF/FL report. The Point CSV gives you the raw data; your team or a third party can format a compliance report from it.
Related Articles
- Floor Elevation (Beta) — what Floor Elevation is, who it's for, and how a job runs
- How to Use Floor Elevation (Beta) — step-by-step field workflow, including "Measure Point Elevation"
- Floor Elevation (Beta) Reports — the downloadable point and area reports and when to use each