What I learned from my Matterport shoot of a Basketball Court

WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host 31.34K Website Atlanta, Georgia Linked In Facebook Twitter YouTube TikTok Instragram Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer Zillow Certified Photographer We Get Around Network Member	31.34K DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	Test Matterport 3D Tour of a Basketball Court by Dan Smigrod Hi All, On Friday (18 October 2019), I did a test scan of a basketball court before quoting on a project to mashup basketball players and coaches on the three-court / 50,000 SQ FT facility. Short Answer ✓ I failed using a Matterport Pro 3D Camera Longer Short Answer ✓ I will end up quoting this project using: 1. a Leica BLK360 Camera, plus 2. Matterport Pro 3D Camera, plus 3. Ricoh Theta Z1 I had hoped to avoid the expense of renting a Leica BLK360 camera which may kill the project. ($$$$$) Long Answer Everything that I was concerned about ... ✓ wide open spaces ✓ plain walls ✓ shinny basketball court floor ✓ light pouring in floor-to-ceiling windows ✓ a floor that looks the same (to the camera) ✓ a super-high ceiling ... contributed to my failure to successfully scan a basketball court. (Unfortunately, per the client, adding targets or objects to the space is not an option.) When my scans ended up in the wrong place - not enough common points to stitch successfully - I tried lowering the camera hoping that the camera would see more of the floor and be successful. It's possible that the dolly ends in the low camera position helped confuse the camera, but from a practical standpoint, scanning the space without a dolly was not an option either. While the scanning went okay when I was close to the bleachers and chairs, as I moved into the court, it was obvious that the camera was having trouble with finding common points among scans (they all looked alike!). BTW, I scanned close together both in an attempt to be successful scanning AND so that I could eventually using a Ricoh Theta Z1 for the shots with the basketball players and coaches. As you can see from the mini-maps above, the floor looks like a train wreck! In the dollhouse view, the floor is a train wreck too. The client is particularly interested in annotating the space with description and video, so I may need to quote the project with Cupix instead (no dollhouse view). I will keep you posted. Best, Dan P.S. Here is the scanning order that I followed ... (Matterport recommends the same technique ... Quote: Originally Posted by @tresdepro @DanSmigrod I've never scanned a Basketball court but I have done some open spaces and I try to scan very close to the walls to start with and get to the center of the room in a spiral way.
	5 years ago	Post 6 • IP flag post

Video: Matterport Academy Scanning Repetitive Spaces (Lesson 10) with Matterport Content Marketing Manager Amir Frank | Video courtesy of Matterport YouTube Channel (28 September 2018)

Hi All,

Add objects - or April Tags - was not an option (said our client).

BUT, this may be an option for you when you have a repetitive space.

Dan

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Amir from Matterport, and today I'm going to talk about scanning a repetitive space.

Sometimes you may find yourself in a space with very redundant and repetitive architecture. For example, a large empty ballroom without any furniture, or a very long hallway in a school.

These areas can be very difficult to scan, because to the capture app, each scan position looks very similar.

The camera aligns, or places scans, based on the depth data that it gathers. In long hallways and open spaces, the depth data from one scan looks very similar to a previous scan.

As a result, it can place the second scan in the same position as the first scan, even though the tripod was moved to a new location. This is an undesirable behavior that we call a misalignment.

Fortunately, it's easy to avoid misalignments. Just add unique 3D objects to the space every 10 to 15 feet to make the space more asymmetric.

3D objects can be fire extinguishers, boxes, backpacks, or anything close by that can blend into the space. These give the camera something to identify and latch onto, thus avoiding a misalignment.

2	2 MarcelGyswyt private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 1
	Looking forward to the finished result!
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WGAN Standard Member 4.09K Website Los Angeles Linked In Facebook Twitter YouTube Instragram Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer Zillow Certified Photographer We Get Around Network Member	4.09K Home3D private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 1
	Performance art with Matterport. I love it!
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WGAN Standard Member 4.09K Website Los Angeles Linked In Facebook Twitter YouTube Instragram Matterport Service Partner Google Street View Trusted Photographer Zillow Certified Photographer We Get Around Network Member	4.09K Home3D private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	Let me add my tip. On jobs like this I carry a stack of cloth foldable organizing cubes - clickable text - available on Amazon for less than $3 each. They're available in several "blend-in" colors such as beige, brown and gray. They fold down completely flat for transport and pop open into roughly 12" cubes. I place them, upside down so the "top" is also solid, around non-descript areas such as Amir describes and they work great to give the MP camera something dimensional to grab onto. To further differentiate between multiple cubes, I'll alternate setting one with its sides parallel to walls, then the next at a 45° angle to walls.
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	They are physical structures (that' the point for the IR scan) so they do appear in the dollhouse view. As for the walkthrough mode, you could place them on the BB court floor only when needing to capture the floor, so the floor will be complete in dollhouse view, and then hide the scans. At whatever distance from the walls that scans DO NOT fail alignment, that's when you'd need to begin using them, so that the relationship between the cubes and walls is accurate. So, you could do a row around the court close to walls, then a second row a bit closer toward center court but which still aligns accurately, using the cubes, and go from there. Do not start using the cubes at distances which ordinarily misalign without them. That would REALLY be asking for trouble! Here is a space using them. Walls were too smooth and overhead beams too repetitive.
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568	568 Shakoure private msg quote post Address this user	plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 0
	A former client of mine, Dan.
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What I learned from my Matterport shoot of a Basketball Court10307