Video: Matterport ShopTalk Webinar held on Wednesday, 10 February 2021 | Video courtesy of Matterport YouTube Channel | Thursday, 11 February 2021

Hi All,

Transcript below ...

Aired Live on Wednesday, 10 February 2021

[i]Ask us anything. Just getting started? Have some burning questions to ask? Join Amir [Frank] as he hosts our Customer Success leader, Holly Brunk, and Kurt Dahlin, Senior Manager of the Customer Support team.

Your thoughts?

Dan


Transcript (video above) [Transcript will be proof read the week of 15 February 2021]

Amir Frank (00:00:00):
Welcome, everybody. Thanks so much for joining me today, joining us today. I really appreciate your attendance. So, let's go ahead and get started. Hopefully, everybody has had a chance to get in and get their audio set up. So, with us today is Kurt. Kurt is managing the support team. Christine, who also manages the support team, and Jordan, who's on our success team. So, between all of us, I hope we'll be able to get your questions answered. If you saw the description to this webinar, this webinar is all about your questions, basically, and we've got some that came in prior to the webinar. So, I'll go through those, and then we'll go and kick it off into live Q&A. So, without further ado, let's go ahead and just get right into it.

Amir Frank (00:00:55):
So, basically, we're just going to get it started with you, Kurt, telling us all about the support team and who you are and what you do. So, let me just get to the next slide.

Kurt Dahlin (00:01:08):
All right. Well, first of all, thank you, Amir. Thanks for having us here today. It's great to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun. So, Amir said, my name is Kurt and I manage the customer support organization here at Matterport. Just to give you just some high-level information about the support organization that you may not know is we currently have 23 agents supporting you around the world. We have agents in every region working all hours. We do a variety of things, obviously, customer service and technical support, what most people are familiar with if you have a need in those areas. We also do repair services, not something that we really advertise. It's more of an after the fact something goes wrong with your model during processing or something like that. We have specialists that can go and repair it.

Kurt Dahlin (00:01:52):
We have stitching services, which some of you are familiar with. That's the combining of two models. Again, if something goes wrong, it's a service we provide to combine two of them together. We'll talk more about that later, I'm sure. Our team is responsible for the initial work we do with you if you have a problem with you camera or you need to do a return or have your camera serviced, all the RMAs originate with the customer support team and we handle it from there.

Kurt Dahlin (00:02:20):
For our enterprise customers and people who take advantage of our API and SDKs, and SSO, we also have specialists on our team that handle that. So, there's a lot of different things we do behind the scenes that people may not be familiar with that keeps us busy.

Kurt Dahlin (00:02:36):
A lot of people asks us, "How do I reach support?" There's a ton of ways that you can get to us. Online, of course. You go to support.matterport.com. You can open a ticket there or just get online self-help support. We have tons of knowledge-based articles and great information and tips and tricks and all that stuff. That's available 24/7. We have telephone support, regional business hours. So, no matter where you are in the world, there should be a phone number you can call and we will typically get to that call within just a few minutes. Email support is always available to you as well. That's, again, available 24/7. Shoot us an email. We almost always respond within 24 hours, if not, not within just a couple of hours.

Kurt Dahlin (00:03:17):
We have chat. If you prefer to chat, we have that available. We can take your support request through Facebook, from the Facebook homepage. You can open a ticket from there, and WhatsApp. We have that available if that's your preferred method of communication. We can certainly communicate with you through that app as well. So, lots of ways to reach us, lots of things we can help you with, and we're here to help. So, that's just a real high-level overview of the support organization.

Amir Frank (00:03:42):
That's awesome. When I first saw this slide, I was surprised by WhatsApp. That took me ... I didn't realize we even have the ability to be contacted via WhatsApp. That's cool. All right. So, in this part of the webinar, the way we broke it up, first, thank you, Kurt, for going through that and telling us all about the support team and how people can get a hold of you guys. It's a lot of different ways. We'll get probably more into that a little bit later with the live Q&A. For now, I've got a few questions that came in through on Ask Me Anything form that we've put together. I'm also going to put together or I'm also going to add a link if you're watching this on-demand after this live webinar. We'll have a link in the description below the video in YouTube where you can go to that form and ask questions, and we might have them here answered in the next ShopTalk or other videos. So, please do take advantage of that.

Amir Frank (00:04:38):
So, our first question to us comes from Bryan who asks, "We would be interested in using this for our architectural millwork shop. We are concerned about the accuracy of the measurements. Should we only rely on this for quoting and giving close dimensions or is it accurate that we can actually build from what your services provide?"

Amir Frank (00:05:00):
So, really good question. Christine, I know in the support team we get or you guys get a lot of questions regarding accuracy. I'll go put my two sense in. Basically, my recommendation is don't build product from these dimensions. Bryan, the Pro2, if you're using that, the different cameras, first of all, let's start with this. The different cameras each have different measurement accuracy. So, a lot depends on which camera you're using, but for the most part, to me, I wouldn't build from any of them. I would go and build from taking the measurements or used to taking.

Amir Frank (00:05:40):
That being said, I definitely think you can quote from it. I think the Pro2, for example, is accurate to within 1%, which means it could be 1% over or under the exact measurement. The Leica BLK is 0.1%. So, these are minuscule, and I think maybe depending on your industry, which I don't know from your question, but I would say that 1% difference is still within reason for giving a pretty darn good quote, but, again, I wouldn't bank on it for building. Christine, would you agree with that?

Christine (00:06:24):
Yeah. I would agree. Basically, you can definitely get a quote for how much you need to order like if it's wood or metal or something, but then once you actually get that, you always want to do the old sane of measure twice cut once, right? So, once you're actually on the site with the material, then you would want to measure for the actual.

Amir Frank (00:06:48):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. Keep in mind that I know for me if we put in new floors in our home, you'd actually go and measure, and then you add another 10% or 15% just to make sure that you have-

Christine (00:07:08):
You always buy more than you really need.

Amir Frank (00:07:09):
Exactly. So, you always buy more. So, I think to make that purchase and to give that quote of what something is going to cost, I think you're going to be very, very close to accurate as far as cost of material go with the measurements that you do get from things like the Pro2. If you're talking about the other cameras, 360 cameras are going to be accurate within 4% to 8%. That might be pushing it. 8% may not be good enough. So, that may not be good enough, but I think the Pro2, and certainly the BLK, absolutely.

Christine (00:07:44):
Yeah. I think if you're going to be doing architectural work, you're going to want to use the Pro2 or the Leica camera.

Amir Frank (00:07:51):
Absolutely. Yeah.

Christine (00:07:52):
For sure.

Amir Frank (00:07:54):
Yeah. Anytime measurement is of any concern and it's close to accurate as possible, the Pro2 and above the 360s are good for other things. They're great cameras, just not as good for measurement. Okay. All right.

Amir Frank (00:08:12):
So, next question came in from Michael who says, "Any way to manually adjust alignment or spaces? Some of our spaces are really complicated and often separate facilities connected by a hallway or corridor don't align to their true ground placement, meaning like off by about 10 to 15 degrees."

Amir Frank (00:08:33):
So, this is tricky, to be honest, to answer without really seeing a good example, but what I would say is scan density is your friend when it comes to alignment, as well as measurement, Bryan, by the way. So, scan density is really important. Having more scans in a smaller area, only scanning four or five feet apart is going to give Capture the ability to have more overlapping scan data. So, it's going to make it a lot easier for that to align.

Amir Frank (00:09:13):
If you're talking about hallways and corridors where the architecture is really, really similar from scan-to-scan, it does increase that difficulty level making it more challenging because the camera doesn't know that you're moving it. It only is able to align after it's captured that next scan, and it tries to see where it belongs in relationship to the previous scan. If it can't find alignment there, then it starts looking at everything on that floor.

Amir Frank (00:09:43):
So, when you have similar architecture on one end of the building and the other end of the building, when it starts looking at everything, that can definitely throw it off big time. So, you want to avoid that, and the way to do that is by increasing your scan density. So, scan maybe three to four feet, four to five feet, something like that. Don't push it eight to 10 feet because that's going to throw you off and you can definitely see misalignments 10 to 15 degrees.

Amir Frank (00:10:07):
Basically, also, just keep a really close eye in Capture where that little blue dot appears. If you see that it is misaligned, if you see that all of a sudden the mini map is thrown off by 10 to 15 degrees, unfortunately at this time, there's no way to get around that. You have to delete that scan and scan again. So, back up, go closer to a previously scanned position and scan again.

Amir Frank (00:10:35):
Other things that you can try, Michael, are adding AprilTags to your scene, to hallways and things like that. Those are not going to be removed in the final image. So, it depends on what your purpose is. If it's mostly for architectural things like that, then who cares if there's a little QR code on the wall, but if it's for promotion and you're promoting a hotel, yeah, that's a big deal. So, think about your client's needs when you do that.

Amir Frank (00:11:03):
Then finally is using stuff. I've seen definitely before in models where they'll grab something that's down the hall and they'll move it a little bit closer so the camera can see it, and as you pass by it, it uses that as a geometrical alignment guide, I guess.

Kurt Dahlin (00:11:25):
Don't use the same item as you're moving through those scanning positions.

Amir Frank (00:11:27):
Don't use the same item.

Christine (00:11:29):
Yeah, don't move it as you're moving down the hall.

Amir Frank (00:11:32):
Don't move it as you're moving down the hall, for sure.

Christine (00:11:34):
Keep it in the spot.

Amir Frank (00:11:36):
I think it's good to keep in mind that, as I mentioned, Capture will initially try to align with the last scanned position. So, take that. Use that to your advantage. So, keep those scans close together, A. If you are using just that one item, have it stationary. Go past it. Once you're, I don't know, 20 feet away from it, it's really no longer of value as far as a tool used for alignment. Then maybe you can pick it up, put it 20-30 feet back in front of you, and the next time you pass it again, it will use it again. I think to be on the safe side, you don't really know. Capture doesn't tell you when it's aligning with the last scanned position. When it stops aligning with that, it aligns with everything else. To be on the safe side, I think, like Christine mentioned, if you can, don't use the same item.

Christine (00:12:40):
Yeah. I would just add that your scan path is really important. So, like you're saying about line of sight to your previous scan point, you can actually see it, and just think logically about things. If you are scanning a place that has people in it, it would be best if you could scan during a time that there aren't as many people, so you could actually scan in order.

Christine (00:13:06):
You don't want to be jumping around a lot like scan a room here, go down a hallway, scan a different room, down the other side and go back. That is where misalignments, which do not give you an error message because it thinks it is aligning correctly. Jumping around like that is what makes misalignments happen more easily. So, if you just go in order as much as possible and keep an eye on where that dot is showing up in the Capture app and if it does appear somewhere that it's not supposed to, don't keep going. Delete it. Get closer to your previous scan and then try again.

Christine (00:13:44):
Another note on it using only the previous scan point, when you create a new floor, it only has the last scan point. It can't look at anything else. So, you want to go up the stairs and then switch to a new floor. You don't want to go up the stairs and then go down somewhere else and then swap to a new floor because it's going to be looking at that last scan that's on the other side of the previous floor. So, just keep that in mind when you're creating a new floor is that it can only see the last one.

Jordan (00:14:17):
Yeah, and if I could just chime in. So, one last piece of advice I would recommend for worries of misalignment is like Amir mentioned earlier, scan density. I feel like a lot of users are hesitant on placing the camera more often than what they should be. That could just be you're going to be moving within the virtual tour in small increments, but the more scan positions you have, the better, and you can always go back into workshop and hide certain scan positions so you're not just moving every inch or so within the model just to help with better alignment. So, more scan points, the better, and you can always go back and hide them.

Amir Frank (00:14:58):
Yeah. Absolutely. Scan density is your friend always. I know when I first started I assumed that I would be able to work through, and I could scanned our office, and I'd be able to work through it much quicker if I maximize the distance between scan positions. In fact, it totally worked against me because it ends up taking a lot longer to align because there isn't as much overlapping scan data, and so on and so forth. So, just because you have a total number, higher number of scans altogether does not necessarily translate to a longer time out there in the field scanning.

Amir Frank (00:15:33):
So, next question that came in through the form is from Anthony who says, "Is there a way to keep the floor names the same in the processed model as what was input while scanning?"

Amir Frank (00:15:46):
Not right now, but I do want to say thank you very much to Anthony for asking the question. I'll get into how it all works in a second here, but I spoke to our vision engineer and our senior product manager Kirk, and agreed that this is actually a really good idea. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be able to get something like this in the pipeline when we talked about it. It could look something like a little switch like the face blur, where you turn it on and turn it off depending on your needs, and then it would be able to not only use the names that you took, but also judge floors in your final model based on how you have your floors set up in your model and Capture.

Amir Frank (00:16:37):
So, hopefully, we'll have that. I mean, it's not going to be tomorrow or the next day. So, don't get too excited but your question, Anthony, did spark some conversation and I really appreciate that. So, thank you for sending it in. .

Amir Frank (00:16:53):
To answer your question, right now, no. There's no way of doing it. What happens is to play it safe, just to make sure that the floors are separated correctly and nothing happens that it shouldn't, floors in Capture are basically just a grouping of scan positions. They don't determine the height or anything like that of the scan itself. That has to do with how it was aligned in the model overall. You're slowly building out a 3D model. That means it goes across in X, Y axis, as well as up and down in the Z axis when it aligns to other scan positions. So, as you work your upstairs, it aligns with previously scanned positions upstairs and it knows that it's moving up.

Amir Frank (00:17:42):
It's not all of a sudden you get to a new floor if you take the elevator up, then you create floor two, and then you start scanning. It's not just going to magically put those scans three meters above the previous scanned positions. They're going to be at the same height because it doesn't realize you just took the elevator up. So, to play it safe, what we do is we take all that model data and we mesh it all together into a complete 3D model, and then a fancy algorithm goes through and decides what is a floor and what is not a floor. If it's generally a scan position that is above other scan positions, that's a different floor.

Amir Frank (00:18:20):
If it's a split level house where you have scan positions here and scan positions here, just because they're not at the same height doesn't mean these are two different floors. So, that could easily come across as one floor in your final model even though in Capture you have that separated as floor one and floor two because these are not over these. It's not going to do that. So, again, something that we would like to work towards to allow, Anthony, you and other people interested in something like this to be able to move that switch over and say, "Trust me. I know what I'm doing. These scan positions are on floor two, these scan positions are on floor one, and just have it that way." So, hopefully, fingers crossed, that will be in the pipeline and one day will be part of the product.

Amir Frank (00:19:06):
I know floors are a big deal in support. Christine, did you want to add anything to that?

Christine (00:19:10):
I mean, he also mentioned the names. Yeah. So, right now, if you name basement, ground floor, second floor in Capture app, it's just going to move over to the Showcase as floor one, two, and three. So, hopefully, as we improve upon it, we can also just take the names, but, yeah, the split level one, for example, we just call that floor separation. In your Capture app, you may have four floors, but in Showcase, it comes out as two, and that's just because the algorithm right now basically sees a floor as being 3 meters tall. So, if it's not, it's 1.5 meters, it's going to, in a sense, combine it with another one.

Amir Frank (00:19:59):
Yeah. Cool.

Christine (00:20:00):
If the navigation works, then it's okay. Also, in Showcase, you can rename floors. So, in the little floor selector, you can rename it and you can say floor one and two, if you want on one.

Amir Frank (00:20:13):
Yeah. Good point. If you do have a split level and it shows it as a single floor, you can just give it the name floors one and two. For anyone who, I guess, wants to eliminate the option of isolating floors, we also have Parameters available that you can add to your shared link to just remove that option altogether. I'm just throwing it out. It works against what Anthony is trying to do, but sometimes it will work in your favor because maybe you'll have just a bathroom that's in the middle of two floors be its own entire floor and you don't really want that. It throws everything off.

Amir Frank (00:20:55):
Right now, the only solution to correct for that is to just say, "You know what? My visitors can't separate floors. They'll see the entire house, all floors together. They can't distinguish between the different floors." So, there's a way to do that by adding &F=0 to the end of your Showcase link. I'll add a link to the whole URL Parameters FAQ page in the description.

Amir Frank (00:21:22):
Michael asks, "Any way to batch move scans from one floor to another? Is it imperative to select floors," this is a good segue into this, "when scanning?"

Amir Frank (00:21:38):
Okay. So, yes. I think if I understand you correctly, Michael, in Capture, there is a way to ... You press a scan position, just hold it down and it will select it, and that will allow you to also tap other scan positions and move all of those scan positions at once to a different floor. I don't know if that's what you had in mind when you mean batch move scans from one floor to another, but, yeah. So, in Capture, you don't necessarily just have to quick tap on a single scan position and move to a new floor. You have a small menu, I think, move to a different floor or delete. Those are your two options. If you tap and hold, it will select it, and it will allow you to select other scan positions, and then you can go and mass move into other floors.

Amir Frank (00:22:30):
To your other point, "Can that be adjusted after uploading the model?" After uploading the model, not really. There's not really much you can do. The floors are set the way they are, the scan positions. So, the way I see model processing, the information that you have scanned in your iPad or iPhone in Capture is your raw ingredients, eggs, flour, sugar, and so on. When you set it up to the processing engine, you're putting all those ingredients into an oven, and that gets baked into a final model. Once that model has been baked, you can't throw in new ingredients. You can't move them around and deconstruct them in any way. That's it. It's been baked. You can bake another model, but you can't go back and add new ingredients to the baked model. That's about it.

Christine (00:23:26):
About the selecting floors when scanning and then that goes with the last sentence there, so when you create floors in Capture, it is important that you create the different floors, but just be aware that when it processes, the processing may see it differently. So, you mentioned an intermediate level, I mean, hopefully, it's aligned, and you want it to align, but if you're going halfway upstairs and then you have this offshoot room and then you go upstairs again, you don't need to create a different floor for the offshoot room. It can just be with the lower floor. Basically, stairs are going to be included in the lower floor.

Christine (00:24:17):
So, the main thing for Capture is that you don't want to scan a floor and then have a second floor that, say, in a warehouse or a hotel or something or even just a regular house, if you don't create a second floor, then you having these scans look like they're overlapping, they can be harder to determine if there's a misalignment or something else wrong with it. So, you want to have a clean map in Capture, but just be aware that when you process it, it may not process the floors exactly like how doing it.

Amir Frank (00:24:57):
Yeah. It sounded like intermediate levels. It's almost like a sunken living room kind of structure or like we're talking before, split level. So, yeah, if you don't have a floor on top of a floor, it's not going to make a difference whether you create a new floor in Capture or not. There are things to keep in mind like Christine said before. When you do create a new floor and the first scan into that floor, it's going to force you to align with the last scanned position on the previous floor or wherever that last scanned position. So, make sure that you are in line of sight when you're scanning into a new floor, the line of sight of the previous scan. Yeah, if it's like a split level kind of thing or a sunken living room and it's two stairs down, you don't need a new floor for that. There's no need. Okay. So, hopefully, we got that. Okay.

Amir Frank (00:25:51):
I think this might be the last question. From Paul, "How long does stitching of two spaces currently take from the support side?" So, I threw this in here, Kurt, because I know stitching is a big deal. So, I'll let you put in your two sense. I've done a number of stitching. Christine's done a lot of repair work. Go ahead.

Kurt Dahlin (00:26:17):
Sure. So, stitching, for those of you that may not be familiar with it, is the process of taking two separate spaces or Matterport models and combining them together into one so that there is a single dollhouse, and this is typically for things like ... You have an out building, you have a main residence, and maybe a pool house or a barn or something like that, and people scan them separately, and they want them connected. They'll ask us to stitch those together.

Kurt Dahlin (00:26:46):
It's a service we provide, but it's very popular right now. We only have a couple of specialists that work on stitching. So, the answer to the question is that it varies. It depends on the complexity of the models, the size, if there's any misalignment. More often than not, we have people coming to us that they ask for stitching because halfway through their scanning process, the Capture app may crash. They many not have a robust enough iPad or enough memory or something like that. So, it will start crashing on them, and they have no option other than to start a new job and complete it. Then they come to us with the two house or the one building and ask us to stitch the other.

Kurt Dahlin (00:27:26):
So, depending on how big it is and if there's any misalignment, it could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks depending on the complexities. So, it's really hard to say. It seems very simple for a lot of people to think about it. It's like, "You have two models. How hard is it? This is what it connect," but there's actually a lot of technical skills required in the background to make that happen. We just a queue, and as requests come in, they go into the queue. It's first come, first serve. Sometimes we have a bit of a backlog, and it could be a fairly simple job for your particular request, but there could be two weeks' worth of tickets in front of you.

Kurt Dahlin (00:28:07):
So, when you do have a request of us to do a stitch, please be patient. We will get to it eventually and make it happen, but it may not happen as quickly as you would like, and that's just because of the backlog that we currently have. To help with that, we are in the process of hiring some more stitchers to the team. So, we're increasing the capacity that we have there, which is good, but I'd like to stress that stitching should not be something that you plan for as part of your process, your workflow.

Kurt Dahlin (00:28:41):
It's something that we can do to help you out if something goes wrong like I said during your scanning process, but, please, by all means, do not plan on sending two technicians to scan a house faster then have us stitch the other for you and have it be ready tomorrow because that's probably not going to happen. It is a complementary service at this time. We will get to it eventually, but it could be a couple days, it could be a couple of weeks. It's just hard to say. So, if at all possible, please don't have it be part of your normal workflow.

Christine (00:29:13):
Once a stitcher does start working on it, it depends again how big it is or if it's misaligned first. They're going to have to fix misalignment first. Yeah. Maybe it could be the next day once they start working on it or it could be a few days later. Sometimes it just doesn't work at all as well, which is unfortunate, but do understand that we try everything that we can to stitch models together, but sometimes it just doesn't work. So, like Kurt said, it shouldn't be something that you rely on, especially at this time when it is just the courtesy thing that we're doing. Always try and plan it within one model or use MatterTags and link each model to each other.

Kurt Dahlin (00:30:01):
We typically only allow two spaces to be stitched together. On rare occasion, you may have a need where you have three or four for different floors of a building that couldn't connect due to a lack of a stairway or something like that that we may work on. Keep in mind that stitchers only stitch two spaces together at a time. So, if you have four spaces that need stitching together, they can only stitch spaces one and two together, and that needs to be processed to create a third single space that they can then stitch the third model onto reprocess. So, it's iterative on how they do it. It's basically one at a time. So, that increases the amount of time the more spaces that are involved.

Jordan (00:30:40):
Yeah, and I was just going to quickly add, before you start scanning whatever space you're in, always plan your path first. A lot of the time, that could be the stitching situation might not even have to happen. It's just if you have an appropriate pathway of how you plan on scanning the facility, you might not even need to stitch them. There are a ton of examples in our gallery that you can find of really large spaces. So, really, it's the path that you choose on how to scan could definitely play a big role into that.

Jordan (00:31:14):
Another thing, I believe Christine mentioned it, if it's okay, if you're doing it for a client and they don't mind having the two models linked, you can create two separate spaces and then include the link to the second space through a MatterTag. So, essentially, you're just jumping between models. So, that's another work around in that case, if that is appropriate for you.

Kurt Dahlin (00:31:37):
Another point I'd like to throw. I mentioned robust iPad. This is a big one we see. People are using older hardware for their Capture device. A five-year-old iPad mini with 64 megabytes of RAM probably isn't going to get you very far compared to an iPad Pro with 512 megabytes of RAM. So, the bigger device you can use, the more robust device you can use for your Capture app, the better off you're going to be, ensuring that you capture your entire space in one job, especially if it's a larger space that you're trying to capture. So, invest a little bit more in your hardware, and that will save you some heartache and some grief down the road.

Christine (00:32:21):
Yeah. I just want to point out. If you go to support.matterport.com and type in stitching, you'll find there should be two articles, one of general information about it and then one about FAQ. So, if you miss something here in this webinar, that information there is on the website.

Kurt Dahlin (00:32:37):
So, stitching size is another big one, right? So, typically, our backend systems can't process anything more than roughly 1,000 scan points. So, if you have a model, we hear from people that go out and they have a massive shopping mall or something like that where they're very proud of it because it's a 1,500 scan point model and it scanned flawlessly, and it looks great on their iPad. It won't process. If they try uploading, it's going to fail, and there's just too much raw data for our backend systems to actually process.

Kurt Dahlin (00:33:10):
So, we online forums where other people recommend, "Oh, just split it in half so you have 750 and 750, process those, and have Matterport stitch them back together for you." That's still not a solution because like I mentioned earlier, once we stitch the two models together, we still have to process it, and we're back to a 1,500 scan point model that isn't going to process. So, you really need to keep your eye on how large of a model you're actually creating.

Amir Frank (00:33:38):
Yeah. I just want to mention what you talked about before, Kurt, and this goes back to scan density with the lower power and less RAM in your iPad keeping in mind that Capture first tries to align with the last scan position, and if it can't do that, then it looks at everything on that floor. You have a really big broad model. You're looking at possibly aligning with 100+ scan positions. That's going to require an incredible amount of processing power, and what Apple does is if your application just starts taking up too much resources from the iPad or iOS device, it will just shut that application down and you'll crash.

Amir Frank (00:34:22):
So, scan density, like we said before, is your friend, making sure that you keep that path of aligned scans as long and continuous as possible as Jordan mentioned. Every time you pick up the camera, go somewhere else in the model. You don't have that line of sight between those two scanned positions, I can guarantee you that Capture is going to start looking at everything on the floor. It's going to increase the amount of processing power you're going to need, and you could potentially either misalign or just fail to align altogether because it just can't do it with so much stuff. So, a good iPad, scan density, and doing a nice long path of alignment are all good things to keep in mind to avoid crashing and stitching altogether.

Kurt Dahlin (00:35:07):
I think I mentioned megabytes, gigabytes, not megabytes. You won't even load the operating system with 64 megabytes. So, little fact out there.

Amir Frank (00:35:17):
Okay. So, really quickly. I know we're already more than half past the hour. We got 20 minutes left. I want to give as much time as possible to our live Q&A. So, I'll just run through this. To get to our support pages anytime you need help, if you just go to our main website, matterport.com, look at the resources tab, go to support. You'll get to the support hub. It's got frequently asked questions. It's got a link to our help center, where you've got more than 300 articles about everything that's related to Matterport, access to chat and phone and everything that you can possibly need to get a hold of us.

Amir Frank (00:35:53):
On that support page, you'll also see the phone number that is relevant to your geographical location. So, this phone number here is correct for the US, 408-805-3347. Anyone can email us, as Kurt mentioned before, at support@matterport.com. Most importantly, I always say this, confirm your profile information. When we send out information or emails or anything, updates that are important that are regarding your account, not just general stuff, we send it to the email that you have in your profile. So, just always make sure it's up-to-date so you can get those and be aware.

Kurt Dahlin (00:36:35):
We hear from people all the time that say, "I didn't get that notice. Where did you send it?" We've read the email address home that they have on file and they say, "I haven't used that in five years," like we were supposed to know. So, please keep that profile information current.

Amir Frank (00:36:47):
Yeah. Super, super important. Stay connected. Check us out on facebook.com/matterport. We're constantly feeding that Facebook page with everything that's going on around Matterport and everything latest and greatest and whatnot. So, definitely a good place to stay connected. Spaces, we've seen some absolutely amazing, amazing spaces structures that we have in our gallery. If you want your space to be part of our gallery, that's awesome. You can show that in your portfolio of spaces in My Space in the Matterport gallery. To do that, go to go.matterport.com/nominate-your-space, and tell us about it. We'll check it out and might get in there.

Amir Frank (00:37:37):
As I said previously, the Ask Me Anything link, I'm going to add that in the description of this on-demand video, but if you're watching it live, we'll try to answer your question right now. So, I'm going to go ahead and stop this. Jordan, what do we got for questions? Let's go ahead and tackle those.

Jordan (00:37:56):
All righty. So, first question that I see here in the Q&A is from Glenn. Glenn asked, "Where can we get training and how to change the path of the fly through generator for our spaces? Love this option."

Amir Frank (00:38:12):
Okay. I'll give it a shot. I think what you're referring to is those little pre-created videos that we have.

Jordan (00:38:22):
The teaser GIFs.

Amir Frank (00:38:23):
Yeah. So, yikes! Unfortunately, there is no way to change those videos, but there is a way of you can create your own and do whatever fly through you want. So, those videos are automatically generate. There's a lot of AI and machine learning behind it. We try and figure out what, I think, a kitchen is and maybe what a living room is or something like that, and we'll pan around one of those. We'll go to the dollhouse, pan around that, and then zoom in to the next room. Like I said, they're just automatically generated and available so that you can use ... A lot of times, they come out great, sometimes not so much.

Amir Frank (00:39:02):
So, basically, what I would recommend in this case to get around that is to create a really, really short highlight reel that's very similar to that, one highlight of inside the room from the location, another highlight from the dollhouse, another one of the other room that you want, and you just go back and forth like that from dollhouse to room, to dollhouse, to room, and so on, but try to keep it short. You don't want it too long, and then do a screen record. That's really the best way to do that.

Amir Frank (00:39:33):
So, again, we talked a little bit about Parameters before. I like to maximize the screen. So, you've got that little icon in the bottom right to fill the screen with your Showcase. You do have that title in the top left corner. To get rid of that, there's a Parameter that you can use. To your Showcase link, just add &title=0. It gets rid of that. You can collapse it also, but you still see that little thing. So, I'd like to just get rid of it entirely.

Amir Frank (00:40:03):
Once you have your whole Showcase full screen and everything, get your favorite screen recording application. I'm on a Mac. I use QuickTime. If you're on Windows, you can use Icecream, and I'm sure there are plenty of other options. That's it. Hit record. Hit play on your highlight reel. Let it go through, and you're done. You just cut the beginning before the highlight reel starts. You cut the end after it ends and before you hit stop, and you've got your little reel. Any other suggestions that I may have missed?

Jordan (00:40:36):
Just as an idea, if you want to think of ways on how to use those because I've been with Matterport for a few years now. You may have gotten an email from me at some point. So, I like to include those little teaser videos or GIFs as a little ending to my email just to make it more animated and fun, and people are, I guess, more willing to engage with that. So, just to give you some creativity on how to use that.

Amir Frank (00:41:02):
That's a really good idea, converting it to a GIF. If you don't know how to convert your screen recording into a GIF, there's plenty of GIF converters online where you just upload your final video and it will just make it into a GIF. That works in an email, video not as much. So, if somebody would have to open the video and watch it, a GIF can just be there playing. So, it could be a nice addition to that.

Christine (00:41:24):
Email doesn't allow IFrames. That's just a general thing. So, yeah, a GIF or a photo would work better.

Amir Frank (00:41:32):
Yeah, yeah. Good. Good idea. Yeah, those are great little animations that we provide.

Jordan (00:41:40):
Perfect. Well, I guess we'll just move on to next questions here. So, the question is from Kurt. This is a two-parter. "Can you add features to the Theta Z1 allowing custom settings for the camera instead of the basic non-modifiable settings? Also, can you improve the high contrast, blow out the Z1 images?"

Amir Frank (00:42:04):
Not right now. So, right now, as far as exposure, I mean, we do use HDR. We take, I think, three or five, I don't remember, I think maybe three, with the 360 cameras, images at exposure levels, and combine them into a single better exposed image, but depending on the scene, that could still be very difficult and you may have some blown out stuff. At this time, there is no way to change that. We're working on improving that. So, it will be done in the camera a little bit better than what we can do it in Capture, but, again, that's future versions of Capture that would allow for that.

Christine (00:42:51):
Yeah, probably-

Kurt Dahlin (00:42:52):
Yeah. It's more ... I'm sorry, Christine. It's more of an engineering question, but I would summarize to say that it's very difficult to allow a customization of the different 360 cameras because we're working harder to be compatible with as many different 360 cameras as possible. So, when we start getting into customization of each individual one, it becomes a lot of work trying to maintain those as those camera companies change their cameras and the APIs and things of that nature. It becomes very difficult for us to keep up with that rather than just have basic compatibility with them out of the box.

Christine (00:43:26):
Yeah. I was going to say from a technical standpoint, each 360 camera, even if it's from the same company, so the Insta360 1X versus the 1R, even those from the same company, each camera has different sensors. So, we're having to be compatible with all those different sensors and they go through the same processing as the Pro2 would. We may later somehow have different processing engines for the cameras, but for now, it is under the same one. So, we're just doing the best we can to process the images with the same algorithms and everything.

Christine (00:44:07):
The other thing to keep in mind is, Amir mentioned it, is just what is the scene. Is it a really natural light area? Then you go into a room that's more the yellow incandescent light bulb, so you're going to have differences there. Also, when you're processing, you have one scan and then you move, and the lighting could be different five feet away, right? So, it's a lot that goes into trying to make all the images look well.

Amir Frank (00:44:42):
Yeah. I know the processing engine also not only has the exposure levels for each scan position, but it also looks at adjacent scan positions and tries to make those so that your transition from one scan position to another scan position isn't so dramatic. So, it's looking at a ton of information at once and manipulating a lot of data.

Amir Frank (00:45:08):
I know there are third party applications, and this is probably where you're going to have more luck turning now and down the road is that using our SDK and API, companies like [inaudible 00:45:21] companies like MPEmbed will allow you to adjust the exposure level of the processed image. So, you're still not going to be able to look at the raw data and tweak that. It's only placed on top of the processed image. So, if it's blown out in the image, you're not going to get that information back. If it's white, it's white. That's it. It's gone, but that being said, you can do a lot to compensate for things like white balance and some exposure levels tweaking. So, check out MPEmbed to see if that helps.

Christine (00:46:00):
Yeah. Of course, we're trying to improve all the images-

Amir Frank (00:46:04):
Always.

Christine (00:46:04):
... on every single camera. It's constantly what we're working on.

Jordan (00:46:09):
All right. Mary Ann had a ... "It sounds like a technical issue with webinars, but I tried doing previous ShopTalks after filling out the info. I clicked Submit and nothing happened. The blank form came back up without downloading anything." Mary Ann, I'll try to connect with you and see if we can get you the previous ShopTalk recordings, if that's what you're looking for.

Amir Frank (00:46:34):
We have them. I know you can get them. You should be able to get them. I'm not sure what the issue is. You should definitely be able to get them through the site, but they're also all available on our YouTube channel. So, check that out. You should be able to find them there, too.

Jordan (00:46:48):
Awesome. The next question is from James. "Hi. This is my first time here. What would be the workflow to scan a location and deliver a DWG and other 3D file types to different departments in my company?"

Amir Frank (00:47:04):
Good question. Good question. So, DWGs are not native to Matterport. We don't generate DWG files, but you can get a MatterPak, assuming you've scanned your structure, whatever it is you're scanning using a Pro2 camera, a Pro1 camera, Leica BLK, any of those higher end cameras that are more dimensionally accurate. You can order something called a MatterPak, and that's going to have your OBJ file. I know some applications can convert the OBJ into DWG, but, unfortunately, that's a manual process after you've downloaded the ... OBJ is going to have to be done. You also get a point cloud XYZ file. So, you can import that. Again, you'll have to find a way of converting that file into a DWG. So, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Jordan (00:48:01):
Next question from George, "If we take supporting measurements and send them in, can the TruePlan be adjusted to actual?"

Kurt Dahlin (00:48:09):
I think what he's asking is if they create a model and they go and physically do the measurements themselves, can they send those to us and have us add them to the TruePlan that they ordered? So, if you order a TruePlan, can those measurements be changed based on their physical readings that they take?

Amir Frank (00:48:27):
That's a good question. So, I know true plan right now, almost 100% sure, I'll have to ask Elizabeth, we've had TruePlan conversations before, you definitely want to go and look up previous ShopTalk webinars where we've had Elizabeth talk about TruePlan because she's the expert, but I'm pretty sure those are only available to anyone just scanning with Pro2 and higher. So, again, dimensionally accurate to within 1% or less is important for ordering TruePlan. I don't believe there's a way of taking measurements and then passing them on to the team creating that TruePlan for you. It's more of an automated process.

Amir Frank (00:49:19):
That's why, A, it's definitely why we require a higher end camera to have that dimensional accuracy. B, I mean, it defeats the purpose of scanning altogether. If you're already taking measurements and putting those on paper and sketching them out, that's what we're trying to avoid to be honest with by scanning with a Matterport camera. So, you don't have to do that, but just to be on the safe side, I'd look back at those other ShopTalks and see if that information is there.

Christine (00:49:57):
I would say the short answer is no, you can't send in supporting measurements because the team is just going to take the measurements from the model itself.

Jordan (00:50:08):
Definitely. So, Dominicas has couple of questions here. "Is there a way of catching up on previous seminars, and what's the best way of showcasing the digital spaces created by your technology as a portfolio piece in order to attract more customers?" So, I can take this.

Jordan (00:50:25):
So, Dominicas, for catching up on previous seminars, we do have a tab on our website, which you can find different ShopTalks or webinars that are previously recorded. You can download those and view those. We also have Matterport Academy on YouTube, which also our great support videos featuring Amir, which help demonstrate certain use cases, how to use certain functionality, et cetera.

Jordan (00:50:51):
Best way to showcase your spaces, a couple of ways you can do that. So, we do have a Matterport Showcase app specifically for that purpose. So, as your pre-COVID times, if you're going into physical spaces and trying to pitch people in-person, a good way is just to whip out your Showcase app and say, "These are different types of work that I've done and this is what I can do for you."

Jordan (00:51:15):
Another option would be, and similar to what Matterport has on our website as well as a lot of other users is just to create a little portfolio tab on your website or Works By Me, things of that nature just so people can see what exactly you do in terms of offering Matterport as a service. So, I hope that answered that question.

Jordan (00:51:37):
Question from Tim, "So, mirrors are a huge problem, especially in bathrooms. Any way to edit scans to remove the camera?" So, Tim, unfortunately, right now, we can't remove the camera when it's shown in a mirror. Trust me, we're well-known about this and we're trying to improve that. I guess a workaround that I can recommend is what, speaking from other experience looking at models, some people take planters or just pictures or something that you would find within the bathroom so it's not like a random object, place it in front of the mirror and then try to place the camera behind it. So, essentially, you'll see the bathroom mirror with the sinks and everything, and then essentially the camera will be blocked by that fake planter.

Jordan (00:52:30):
It also is a nice tactic to be used for large spaces, too. So, just replacing AprilTags on the floor, things like that. You can also use a planter if that's what it calls for.

Kurt Dahlin (00:52:43):
There's also an alternative solution if you have the budget for it. I think it's fairly expensive, but there is a company out there that will, if I'm not mistaken, that we partner with going in digitally, make alterations to your photos, your panoramas. So, they can go in and digitally erase a person or the camera out in a mirror and that sort of thing, but it's a third party, so there will be a cost for that.

Jordan (00:53:08):
Question from Kurt, "What causes scan misplacement on one floor in close together scans?" I think I know the answer to this, but correct me if I'm wrong here, guys. So, if you position the camera too close to itself, so maybe a foot apart, I think it doesn't provide enough space for it to read the depth in between the distances. I could be wrong.

Amir Frank (00:53:33):
That's right. I don't know. I wouldn't think so, but maybe it depends on the scene and what's being scanned.

Christine (00:53:41):
I mean, basically, what causes misplacement is what we call misalignment, and that's just simply that the new scan that you're doing looks exactly like the previous scan. This typically happens in hallways, and empty warehouse type of places, where just everything looks exactly the same. It happens in stairwells, too, actually. That may actually cause the floors to merge down together. So, that's where AprilTags could potentially help, but what causes misalignment is just that it looks exactly the same to the camera. It doesn't realize that you've actually moved a few feet away.

Jordan (00:54:29):
This is a question from Ian. "Can our solution be used with VR software platforms from Epic and Unity?"

Amir Frank (00:54:36):
I believe I have heard of people using our solution with Unity. I don't know anything about Epic. So, I'm not sure. I haven't heard about that, but Unity, yeah, definitely. People are taking the 3D-generated model-

Christine (00:54:47):
The OBJ.

Amir Frank (00:54:48):
... the MatterPak that I mentioned and putting that in Unity and using it in different ways.

Jordan (00:54:53):
Yeah. Just to add on to that, if you go to YouTube and type in Matterport Unity, there actually are example videos of students in universities made little video game type maps based off of the classroom they were in. So, yes, you can use Unity for VR, too.

Christine (00:55:12):
I do want to say, though, that if you're trying to make a Matterport space into Unity, you should contact Unity support team. We're experts in Matterport. We're not experts in Unity. So, go to the proper support team for the program that you're using. So, same thing goes if you're using Autodesk or any of those other CAD programs. We can provide the point cloud to you. We can provide the OBJ, but if you're then trying to import it into some other program, if you reach out to us, we're going to say, "Sorry. We can't help you. Please contact that company's support team."

Amir Frank (00:55:52):
Yeah. There's nothing unique about our OBJ or XYZ files. They're generic.

Christine (00:55:58):
It's standard.

Amir Frank (00:55:59):
Very, very standard. So, it's not like it's a unique Matterport model or anything like that. It's super, super standard. With the files that we provide, it would be as standard as possible. If it's floor plan file, it's going to be PDF, PNG image files and SVG vector-based. So, those are as standard and as ubiquitous as possible.

Jordan (00:56:24):
I know we're coming up on time here, so just a couple webinar-related type questions. Jared, yes, this webinar is recorded, and it should be sent to you. You could also go to our website and it will also be shown once the recording is finalized and published. So, yes, you should see it.

Amir Frank (00:56:43):
Yeah, but certainly everybody attending will get a followup email after the webinar and that should include a link to this recording.

Jordan (00:56:51):
So, I'll take one more question here.

Amir Frank (00:56:53):
One last one.

Jordan (00:56:53):
Yup. A question from Anonymous, "After I've uploaded a model, can I fix a misalignment of one single room by deleting the misaligned photos then retaking photos of that just room in Capture or do I need to start from scratch with the whole space?"

Amir Frank (00:57:11):
Yeah. Absolutely. Christine, you should-

Christine (00:57:12):
Yeah. If it's very obvious that is just the one room, then, yeah. You can certainly delete those scans. Make sure you're deleting all of the misaligned scans, and then you can just add to it, make sure it aligns properly and upload it. In processing, it does do a little bit of extra alignment. It just looks at all the scans and make sure that it fits together properly.

Christine (00:57:37):
For the most part, what you see in Capture app is what you're going to see for alignment in the final showcase. So, if you do see a room fully off kilter or I've seen them be duplicated on the other side because on two ends of the hall they had similar-looking rooms, yeah, certainly delete that room and rescan it, and you can reupload.

Kurt Dahlin (00:57:59):
Just to add on to that real quick. Most of the time, you wouldn't have to wait to scan an entire room before you know it's out alignment. Pay very close attention to every scan that you take and look at it in your mini map in your Capture app where it places that scan. If you step inside a room and you take a scan and that scan doesn't show up on the map in the right place where it should, delete it and immediately rescan. Don't wait till you capture the whole room to delete because it's just going to make it more difficult there. So, be very mindful of the scan placement locations as you're creating the map.

Amir Frank (00:58:34):
Yeah. Absolutely. I totally understand the challenges in that. You're trying to get through the scanning process as quickly as possible and you'll just hear that audible okay signal from Capture that says, "Yeah, aligned," but you need to just take a quick second to look at that map, look at that blue dot and make sure that it's where the tripod was positioned and then you can move forward.

Christine (00:59:00):
Yeah. When it says, "Okay. Move the camera," it doesn't have the dot yet, the numbered scan, but, I mean, coming from the support side, it's worth the time to just wait for that scan to actually show up because it's going to take even longer to rescan a room or rescan the whole place if that's what it does take or we can try on support to repair it, but we have limited specialists that are able to do such thing and so it might just be faster to rescan it, honestly, but, yeah. So, just take the time to make sure that the scan is showing up in the correct spot. That's my best recommendation.

Kurt Dahlin (00:59:43):
That's assuming you can't even get back to the property to do a rescan.

Christine (00:59:46):
Exactly. So, take the time while you're there to make sure that it's aligning properly.

Amir Frank (00:59:53):
Yeah. Super important. All right. So, unfortunately, we are out of time. We have a ton more questions. I wish we could get to all of them. We won't make it this round, but we should definitely do this again. This was fun.

Kurt Dahlin (01:00:06):
It's a lot of fun. Thanks for having us.

Christine (01:00:09):
Yeah. Thank you.

Jordan (01:00:09):
Yeah. Thank you.

Amir Frank (01:00:10):
So, thanks, all. Thank you very much to everybody who attended and participated and asked us these great questions. I do apologize again for all the questions that we were not able to get to. I promise next time we'll do our best to answer more of the live questions. Okay. So, with that, have a great rest of your day and thanks again. Take care, everybody.

Kurt Dahlin (01:00:32):
Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.

Christine (01:00:33):
Bye.

Jordan (01:00:34):
Thanks.