Visual Data

An optional additional survey output, associated with Plan Variant Coding, is Visual Data Sheet documentation. Measured surveys are undertaken for each identifiable dwelling variant and VDS's are prepared which include recognition photographs together with a floor plan at 1:100 scale. Each VDS is identified by the variant type code, for cross reference to all properties on the housing register.

Visual Data Sheets can be supplied in bound hard-copy formats or within CAD (together with scanned photograph images) fully linked to the attribute and condition database.

In NBA's experience, this type of documentation is regarded by most who now possess it, as one of the most important outputs from a survey: it is frequently suggested to us that, accepting the value of computerised data, Visual data  tend to have wider currency - for day-to-day maintenance, as well as management functions. (It was, of course, present NBA officers who first developed the principle and techniques of VDS documentation - as well as elemental repair programming - in 1978).

The cost of producing such documentation is, of course, dependent on the number and 'spread' of dwelling type variants within the particular stock.