Can I undo all my edits and start over from the scan?
If you have been editing a floor plan for a while — moving walls, removing one, changing colours — and regret the whole thing, the question is whether there is a shortcut back to the starting point, without scanning the home again.
Short answer: yes, in an app built for editing a floor plan after a scan, you can typically reset a floor — or the whole home — back to what the sensor originally measured. That doesn't require scanning again. What does not disappear on a reset depends on how the app separates its data: furniture, photos and other additions you've placed yourself normally sit in a different layer than the building geometry itself, and should survive even when walls and measurements are reset.
Why does this scenario come up at all?
Editing a floor plan is a process, not a one-off action. You straighten a crooked wall, remove an internal wall to see what an open-plan kitchen-diner would look like, colour a couple of rooms, and somewhere along the way you lose track of what is actually measured geometry and what is your own hypothesis. At some point most users want to see: "what did the scan actually find, before I started poking at it?" — either to compare, or because the edits have spiralled and a fresh start is easier than tracking down the mistake.
What does "the scan" mean in this context?
When an app builds a floor plan from a LiDAR scan, it typically stores two things: the raw, measured geometry (walls, doors, windows, as the sensor found them) and a separate layer of edits you've made on top of it. The raw geometry is the "truth", which the app never changes on its own — it sits untouched, no matter how much you edit on top of it. That's exactly why a reset is possible: it doesn't delete anything, it just hides the edit layer and shows the underlying geometry again.
What disappears on a reset — and what doesn't?
- Disappears: moved or straightened walls that you've corrected, walls you've converted to a different type (for example changing how a load-bearing wall is shown), colours you've given walls and rooms, and any other geometric change.
- Comes back: walls you've removed from the drawing. A reset isn't just "undo the last action" — it puts the entire floor back to the starting point, so a removed wall reappears as though it was never deleted.
- Typically survives: furniture you've placed yourself, photos and notes, and other additions that aren't part of the building's own geometry. These sit as a separate layer on top and aren't what a geometric reset is about.
If you're unsure exactly what a given app preserves, it's worth reading the feature's own description before using it — "reset" can in practice cover different scope from one app to the next.
Does it reset the whole house, or can you choose floor by floor?
In a home with several floors, it rarely makes sense to reset everything at once if the problem only occurred on one floor. A good implementation lets you choose which floor to put back, so you don't lose hours of work on the ground floor because the first floor got messed up. If the app lacks that granularity, it's worth considering whether to fix the individual mistakes by hand instead of resetting the whole house.
Is there a middle ground between "fix manually" and "reset everything"?
Yes — if the app supports it, you can often reset individual parts: one wall, one opening, one colour, rather than the whole floor. That's the best solution when you can pinpoint exactly which edit went wrong. A full reset is the tool for when you either can't trace the mistake, or you've made so many edits that starting over is faster than searching.
What if you've spent a long time on the edits — is there a confirmation first?
Most apps with this feature show a warning before the reset happens, precisely because the action can't be undone afterwards — once the edit layer is gone, it's gone. If you're unsure whether you'll lose something valuable, the safe approach is to export or save a copy of the drawing as it looks now, before pressing reset. A PDF or a screen recording of the current state costs nothing and gives you a reference point to return to, should you regret the reset itself.
Why does the feature exist at all — isn't it just a symptom of a poor editing interface?
No, it's a deliberate design choice, not a workaround. An editable floor plan that lets you experiment freely — remove a wall to see what a renovated room would look like, try a colour, move an opening — is far more useful if the experiment can always be pulled back with no consequence. Without a reliable reset, users would be reluctant to experiment, afraid of destroying something they can't get back. The feature is therefore a precondition for editing feeling safe to play with at all.
What about the original scan — is it still stored somewhere?
In an app that separates raw geometry from edits, the answer is yes: the original, measured geometry isn't something you can permanently overwrite by editing. The only thing that actually deletes the underlying scan is deleting the whole house or floor from the app — not editing or resetting within it.
What HouseSense does
Every edit to a floor plan — moved or corrected walls, removed walls, conversions and colours — can be reset floor by floor back to the original scan, without requiring a new scan of the home. Removed walls come back, conversions are undone, and colours can be cleared again. Furniture and other additions sit in a separate layer and aren't affected by a geometric reset.
In short
- A reset restores the original, measured geometry — it doesn't delete it, it just hides your edits.
- Removed walls come back; it isn't "undo the last action" but a reset of the entire floor.
- Furniture and other non-geometric additions typically sit in a separate layer that isn't touched.
- Save or export a copy before resetting, if you're unsure what you'd lose.