Dusty Robotics Maximizes Digital Models at the Jobsite

Construction projects often begin with detailed digital models. Yet, transferring that information to the jobsite has traditionally required that people manually measure and mark floors. Even a well-developed model will lose its value when a field layout is incomplete, unclear, or just plain wrong.

Dusty Robotics, based in Mountain View, California, developed the FieldPrinter robot to bring information-rich digital designs directly to the jobsite.

Affectionately named “Dusty,” this autonomous mobile robot prints digital building plans and blueprints directly onto construction jobsite floors. Replacing manual tape measures and chalk lines, Dusty plots lines, text, and symbols straight from BIM/CAD models onto concrete slabs with high precision.

According to Dusty Robotics Senior Director Zachary Reiss-Davis, “Traditional layout has not really changed since literally the [early] Egyptians. It involves two people with a piece of string and a chalk box.” The chalk-coated string is stretched taut and snapped against the ground, leaving a straight chalk line. 

“That is an incredibly manual, incredibly tedious process. Anytime your layout is wrong, anytime it's incomplete, anytime it's just not clear, you're going to drive rework,” says Reiss-Davis. Incorrect or unclear layouts can derail schedules and force crews to retrace their steps and complete the same work twice while the rest of the project falls dangerously behind.

Rethinking a Manual Process

To develop a better solution, Dusty Robotics had to create hardware precise enough to accurately replicate construction layouts while being rugged enough to function as an everyday construction tool in dusty, debris-strewn, constantly changing environments.

Dusty Robotics leveraged SOLIDWORKS® Design as its engineering environment for developing its robot and coordinating the decisions required to manufacture it. The complete SOLIDWORKS 3D model enabled the team to examine the robot as an assembly while considering how design decisions would affect production.

Reiss-Davis explains, “The entire robot is fully 3D modeled in SOLIDWORKS. We use SOLIDWORKS for decision making not just about design, but also about manufacturing.” Both the Dusty Robotics team and their external partners use SOLIDWORKS Design. Reiss-Davis  continues, “I think it makes for a much better collaboration process, not just internally at Dusty, but also with the partners we work with to design the robot, whether they're designing individual components or manufacturing them.”

That shared system keeps engineering discussions grounded in the same product definition. Internal and external designers and manufacturing personnel can collaborate using a CAD environment everyone is familiar with. SOLIDWORKS Design is part of the product development process rather than a separate handoff between design and production.

Printing a New Way to Build

The result of Dusty Robotics coordinated development process is a robot that helps an operator automate construction layout in the field. Using the FieldPrinter, an operator can lay out 10,000 to 15,000 square feet per day. The robot prints at 600 DPI with accuracy to within 1/16 inch, placing detailed model information directly where construction work will occur. At 3DEXPERIENCE World 2026, Dusty Robotics demonstrated how its FieldPrinter can print full-scale layouts from DWG files created in DraftSight.
 

The greater change is not limited to completing conventional layouts faster. Printed installation instructions can alter how designers, coordinators, and field crews communicate. Reiss-Davis enthuses, “What really gets people's eyes to light up is when you start printing installation instructions. You start printing what needs to be put there and how it needs to be built. And people think, ‘Oh, I can actually change my systems and processes for building, not just get the same things I had been doing done faster.’”

The model can therefore carry more of its design intent into the field. Crews receive actionable information at the point of installation, while project teams gain a clearer connection between coordinated digital data and physical work.

Building from the Model

Dusty Robotics shows how disciplined product development can support a broader change in construction. Dusty the FieldPrinter does not replace the need for an accurate digital model or a coordinated project team. It gives those teams an easy and direct way to make model information visible and usable on the jobsite.

“For us, it's all about new ways of communicating information to the field and making it so that the information in your digital model isn't stuck there. Instead, it becomes something we can use to build, reduce rework, and build [more efficiently].” Reiss-Davis concludes.