Video: A Walk Through of the New iGUIDE PLANIX Camera System - Master Class | Video courtesy of iGUIDE YouTube Channel | 16 March 2021

Video Transcript: A Walk Through of the New iGUIDE PLANIX Camera System


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Transcript (Video above)

Chris White (00:00):
It says I can record to the cloud. That's cool. All right. Well, without further ado, why don't I introduce you to the new camera system? So, very much like IMS-5, it has its own carrying case. And it comes with a carrying case. Right? It's pretty great. I don't know that I've ever bought, well, not a camera anyway, that came with its own case, that's bespoke and branded, and has laser cutouts for everything.

Chris White (00:36):
The nice thing about this case is that it is, let me hold it up so you guys can see it properly, is that it's a little bit flatter, a little bit squatter, a little bit more suit casey than the IMS-5 case. The IMS-5 case is awesome. There's nothing wrong with it. But PLANIX is just a different shape, so it doesn't need to be quite such a square thing. And this one's a little more stable when it's laying down. So, in the trunk of a car, you don't really have to try as hard. Not that that was ever really that big a deal with IMS-5, but people did bring that up to me.

Chris White (01:08):
But anyway, yeah, the case is really nice, plastic stuff. It's got a handle. It's got, it comes with a shoulder strap. It hooks on the side. It's pretty cool. Pretty awesome.

Chris White (01:18):
I will open up for you, and I'll show you what's inside. I hope you guys can see this. So, you've got laser cut foam. And you've got a spot for the camera, the whole unit itself with the Theta included, everything, a spot for a smart device, spot for the charger, spot for a battery. How cool is that?

Chris White (01:46):
So, we only provide one battery with the system. And I know this is going to come up, so I'll just answer the question now. And right away, we're not going to sell additional batteries and we may never. But you can buy them online. That's very easy. We have the retailers, Lincoln, everything. It might even be on the store page as well. And so, if you want to buy another battery and put it in here, you totally could and have a backup battery, which is super cool. So, that's totally an option.

Chris White (02:13):
But yeah, you can see that very much like the IMS-5, you've got a perfect bespoke cutout for your gear. How cool is that? The entire unit itself rests in here with the Theta attached, and the Theta's lens cap as well. We mentioned that. But yeah, it's a really nice case. I'm a big fan.

Chris White (02:38):
So, I'm going to pull out the camera now. This is so exciting. I haven't been able to really show this off for months. I got goosebumps. Okay. So, let me get it closer to the camera.

Chris White (02:50):
So, here she is. Okay? As you can see from the ease with which I'm handling this thing, it doesn't weigh very much. It's about one kilogram, give or take. It's maybe slightly hair under, but one kilogram. IMS-5 by comparison is two plus. So, it's half the weight. And that makes sense because it's smaller. It's made of plastic. There's a lot of lighter components on here. So, that's really nice.

Chris White (03:20):
And you'll notice I can also hold it with one hand. And it was designed to be gripable, so you can put it on a tripod with just a single hand or a single arm, which is awesome.

Chris White (03:31):
So, some things to note here, you've got the Theta on top. And then you've got, you guys can see this, the laser scanner in here. And then you've got the computery guts and stuff over here.

Chris White (03:46):
Fun fact, there is a very special way to take the lens cap off. So, you get one of these, if you buy the camera. You pinch it here and you pull up, and it pops off. Now, I know you're all probably going to totally forget that. And then eventually, if you get your PLANIX in the mail, maybe you've already ordered one, I don't know, you're going to try to wrench this thing off and it's going to be a nightmare. But that's how you do it. And there probably will be a sticker on top telling you how to do it, but you pinch and you pull. They get stuck easily.

Chris White (04:14):
Anyway, what you're going to notice right away is that right on the front, there is the USB drive. So, that's really cool, because with IMS-5, for example, it was very challenging to get that USB drive in and out because it was tucked up underneath, which is cool, because it's a protected place. So, that's not a bad thing. But here it's just a lot more accessible. You can just pull it out and you can just push it back in, which is very cool.

Chris White (04:44):
I don't know if you guys can see this, let me get it real close. This well that the USB drive sits in is also very large. And that means it can accommodate all sorts of weird sizes of USB drives. And that was a common problem with IMS-5, was that you'd have a USB drive that was just weird, it was just a little too fat or longer, or whatever, and you try to put it in and it just wouldn't be able to fit in that area next to the other cables that are in there. But Nope, lots of space. So, no worries there. Because it's visible, obviously you're going to want to go with... I mean, it comes to the USB drive obviously to seize that one. But if you want to get a different one, you're going to have to think about aesthetics now because people are going to see it. So, you might want to get something that's more attractive and consider different finishes. This one is like a cool brushed metal one. I don't recommend it. It picks up fingerprints. But there we are.

Chris White (05:37):
Here you can see the controls. So, the unit looks pretty complicated, but it's very much like IMS-5. It looks complicated, but it's very simple. There's only one button, that's it, just the one. And it does everything. There's a lot of buttons on the face that you don't use any of those.

Chris White (05:57):
It's very similar to IMS-5 in the way that this unit is controlling the Theta. So, I'll take this off, so you guys can see the cool lens. The Theta Z1 is just up here doing its thing. But it's being controlled by this. So, you don't use any of the buttons or anything on here. The little view screen thing, you will light up here. I'll turn it on, you guys can watch. But it's just like the DSLR on the IMS-5. That DSLR, you're not really using it for much. The assistant controller, the computer on the IMS-5 is controlling that DSLR and running it in what is essentially tethered mode. This is very similar.

Chris White (06:35):
You can see that the power button right here, lights up. Pretty cool. Nice touch. And then there are two indicators on either side. One is for Wi-Fi and the other one is for connectivity. So, in addition to that, you also have a battery meter. So, very cool. Okay?

Chris White (06:56):
One of the things about IMS-5, was that you essentially had two batteries. You had the big system battery, and then you had the little battery.

Chris White (07:05):
Oh wow, you guys can actually see the laser spinning. Okay. That's pretty neat. That's not damaging my camera.

Chris White (07:10):
Either way, the system battery in IMS-5 never powered the DSLR. But for this system, the system battery does power the Theta. So, that's a big deal. And the reason it's a big deal, is that the battery life on a Theta running on its own sucks. It's not good. So, what that means is that the problem with the Theta on its own is not a problem anymore because you have that giant system battery.

Chris White (07:36):
There's a big door. There you go, right here, pop it open, and pull the battery out. I'm not going to do it. I don't want to break this. But that battery provides pass through power to the Theta. So, you never have to charge the Theta. You never need to remove it. It's totally looks like a coffee maker. Oh yeah.

Chris White (07:55):
Well, to be honest, okay, we've been talking about this, just small tangent, and then all back on track. Spaceship, football, dragon's egg, someone mentioned that at one point. Anyway, the controls are very simple. So, to my earlier point, it's very much like IMS-5. And it looks complicated, but it's very simple.

Chris White (08:19):
So, to turn the system on you tap the button. That's it. When it's ready to connect via Wi-Fi, the little light turns on showing you that it's ready. Super simple. You want to turn it off, push the button again. I'll show you. That's it. So, there's no extra steps in terms of turning things off and turning them on.

Chris White (08:39):
The only thing I would, in terms of downsides as a comparison, it does take a little bit longer to boot, because it has to boot up and then connect to the Theta. And there's a bit of software magic stuff that happens there, but it's like 30 seconds. It's not that big a deal.

Chris White (08:53):
Anyway, some other physical things that I'll point out that you may or may not have noticed. There is no rotational mechanism here. So, a big part of what makes PLANIX very cool, is that it's measuring in 360 degrees. So, you can see the laser scanner has a clear view of everything in the 360 degree arc. So, these little pillars, I don't know how they do this, but they subtract them or something. So, it doesn't seem to matter. But it's measuring in 360. There's no rotation required.

Chris White (09:31):
The Theta, if you're not familiar, is a two lens, 360 degree camera. That means that in one go, it takes two fish eye images and combines them to make a full 360. So, the PLANIX system fully measures and photographs an entire space at once in one go, that's it. No rotation required. So, obviously there's then no rotator. The bottom does have. I don't know if you guys can see this. I hope so. Obviously, a threaded quarter inch screw hole for a tripod or a quick release plate of your choice. Fun fact, the best ones to use are Arca-Swiss, because when you put it down on the plate and you screw the plate tight, it just works really well. It's great.

Chris White (10:18):
But everyone and their brother uses Manfrotto ones, the RC2s. I don't know, if I haven't kicked around. But when you put those on, there's a trick. And it's in the training, we already are aware of it. So, it'll be there available to you this trick, day one. But basically, the plate, you just have to rotate it a little bit, so that the little swing arm on the Manfrotto quick release plate holder, doesn't collide with the feet, which perfectly segues into the last thing I'm going to mention, which is that this thing has feet. Check this out. It's just sitting on a table right now. That was something you could never do with IMS-5. It was always super weird. It was like, how do you put it down in a way that, where it won't get damaged, and that it makes sense?

Chris White (10:59):
So, this thing can stand on its own. And you can see that these little feet here. You guys can see this. Raise it up above the table. And they allow you to plug in the charging port and have the device sitting on your desk, if you want. If you want to treat it like an objet d'art, you want to just have it on your desk to gaze at it, you can totally do that. And you can plug it into a boot and have it just sitting there, which gives you access to the USB drive, which you can still do from the case.

Chris White (11:27):
So, there's a lot of good stuff that's carried forward from the IMS-5 that we've kept. So, I'll give you an example. The IMS-5 was designed, so that when it was in its case, you could access everything. Same thing, totally the same thing with this camera. These little feet, give some clearance on the bottom. So, if you want to plug it in while it's in the case, you totally can. And then depending on how you put it in, the USB drive would be facing up and you can pull that out. So, that means after shoot, you get home, open up the case, that's it, plug it in, pull out the USB drive, and you're good to go. You don't need to remove it from the case unless you're at a shoot. But if you want to, you totally can.

Chris White (12:00):
The other benefit of the feet is that you can actually use it without a tripod, if you want to. We haven't seen any super-duper effective examples of this yet. But imagine for a moment that you have a scenario where you have an area that you just can't get a tripod into and it's driving you nuts, you can technically take this off the tripod and just put it in that space. So, it's weird, and that's probably not going to be a super common occurrence, but it's now an option.

Chris White (12:28):
The other cool thing too, is that you can now get the camera much lower to the floor. So, this doesn't affect regular, everyday, residential, real estate to any great degree, because that would be super ugly.

Chris White (12:38):
But if you're trying to do something super weird, you're measuring a facility and they ask you to do a plan to the roof, well, how do you measure a roof? Sometimes they have a little wall that goes up, maybe a couple of feet around the side of the roof. So, that means you have to take your camera and lower it on the tripod. Well, you don't have to do that with this. You can just take it off the tripod and put it on the ground. And it'll it'll measure, six, seven, eight inches. I don't know how that is off of ground, which is quite cool.

Chris White (13:05):
The last thing I want to mention about the physicals, I know the feet I said was the last thing, but it's not, is that you can already tell, I'm sure, that this thing is symmetrical. Okay? So, it's light and it's symmetrical. So, what that means is when you put it on a tripod, it's not going to tilt or whatever.

Chris White (13:27):
And so, not to knock IMS-5, it's still an awesome camera, but one of the annoying things with it, was that it was off center. So, it would tilt backwards, which was super irritating sometimes. Not all the time, just sometimes. So, this doesn't do that. It's symmetrical. So, that means you can put it on a tripod, and it's pretty good.

Chris White (13:45):
You can also use a lighter tripod, than you would have with the IMS-5 because this is lighter, but also because it's symmetrical. The IMS-5 that off-centered weight tended to pull the tripod over. So, if it was cheap, you'd know it. Whereas with this, you can get away with a chrummier tripod. That being said, don't use a crummy tripod, use a good one. Don't be cheap. But if you're desperate, you have to use a cheap one.

Chris White (14:13):
So, I can already see a question about it. So, I'm going to address it right now. So, monopods and other things that are meant to hold the Ricoh Theta Z1, don't use those. This thing has got too much mass. It's just not stable.

Chris White (14:24):
Now, there are a few things in between tripods and monopods that are weird one offs. So, I have one, I have essentially what is a really tiny tripod base, and then a really long center column. And it is pretty cool and it does work, but I haven't really field tested it to be honest. So, I couldn't really speak to how good an idea that is.

Chris White (14:48):
But imagine for a moment, a light stand. I can even show you guys one. Here's a light stand. Okay? It's got a small spread and then a big column that goes out, right? So, technically, you could use one of those, but it wouldn't be as stable as a regular trip. And also, that's weird. Not a lot of people have that kind of stuff. So, that's going to require a bit of experimentation. But I mean, this is not a cheap item. You don't want to be putting it on a crummy, unstable tripod, even if it is more convenient to move through rooms. There's lots of other tricks to move fast with the regular tripod. And we'll get to those when I do my April 1st webinar. I won't get into that now.

Chris White (15:26):
Anyway, there's the system, that's the hardware. It's one self-contained unit, but that integrates a 360 degree camera and a 360 degree LiDAR, and storage, all in one thing, so that you take it out of case, you slap it on a tripod, you scan a house, and then you put it away, all in one go.

Chris White (15:47):
Now, I don't know if anyone was going to ask this, but yes, you can buy it without the Theta and add your own Theta in. And the way that's done, I've never seen that done, but basically the unit would be shipped without the Theta. And then this top plate, I don't know if you guys can see that there's screws, you can remove them, insert the Theta and then screw them back down. So, it's designed to be able to add your own Theta if you have one. Because a lot of people already have a Ricoh Theta Z1. So, it's only compatible with the Z1. There are plans to possibly expand on that later, but at the moment it's just this particular camera.

Chris White (16:24):
Okay, cool. So, you check my notes. That was a lot of talking. So, where are we at? 24 minutes. We're doing great. No problem.

Chris White (16:33):
Okie dokie, did I miss anything? Lens cap reminder. Oh yeah., some stats. You guys probably want some stats, cool. So, I mentioned that it has the 360 degree field of view. That's pretty cool. But the range of the LiDAR is also significantly better. It remains to be seen how much literally it is better in actual field use. But the specs on the LiDAR say that it has a range of 40 meters. And I have noticed that the range is quite good. So, the previous camera was probably at a range of 10 meters, but then the stated range was often much lower than what it would actually do. So, take all of this with a grain of salt. But anyway, the range of the laser is slightly better. That's cool.

Chris White (17:22):
And what else do we got for stats? Oh yeah, the shoot times. So, think about it like this, so the IMS-5 had a scan time of around, create one scan position, around 15 to 20 seconds, give or take, depending on how fast you can rotate it. The fact that there's no rotation here, you just push a button and it's just going to do a thing, means that it is faster. And also, there's less processing.

Chris White (17:56):
Now, that being said, one of the killer features with this is auto alignment. So, there's actually more processing going on. But overall, the scan time for a IMS-5 camera is within a range of about eight to 20 seconds. And so, eight seconds is where there's no HDR. It's the fastest you can go. In 20 seconds, is about the fastest you can go with HDR. So, this camera is more like five to 15 seconds. So, it's not humongous, but it is there. We're going to talk about speed later.

Chris White (18:30):
But the reason there's that range, and then even with that range, you have to take that with a grain of salt, is that people physically move at different speeds, and their comfort levels are different with pieces of hardware. So, even though you can shoot with IMS-5 in 20 seconds, there aren't many people who do consistently. So, quite frequently, people will move a lot slower than that, simply because they're being very careful. And they don't want to jeopardize the quality of the data that they're gathering with their scans. So, they're not maybe as reckless as I am. So, that means that in the real world, the actual speed grader, the speed difference is actually greater than what is on paper, because there's just less of a likelihood of error. And then, so that means you don't have to shoot the panel again. And then there's less likelihood that you'll slow down and very carefully rotate the camera because you don't have to. She's cool. Okay.

Chris White (19:28):
So, that was a lot of talking. What I'm going to show you now is the Survey interface. So, a big part of this camera, beyond the hardware, is the software. So, there's no difference in the way you connect to this camera for the most part. So, it's the same as with IMS-5. You want to use a phone, a tablet, Android, Apple, a laptop. I mean, don't use a laptop. But any device you want, it's fine. As long as it has a web browser, preferably Chrome or Safari. You can load the app from the camera to control it.

Chris White (20:00):
So, Survey App itself has been redesigned. So, let me share my screen. Actually let me put this away, so I don't drop it. Terrifying, I'm going to break it on camera and embarrass myself. Turn it off. There you go. So, this has auto power off just like IMS-5. So, even if I didn't turn it off, it wouldn't matter. I could just put it in the case, and it'll totally just turn itself off.

Chris White (20:26):
Let me share my screen with you. Let's go have a look. There we go. Okay. So, one of the really cool things about this particular version of Survey is that it has an online training simulator. So, we're just, we're looking in the future right now. So, what you're seeing right now is an actual version of the Survey interface, not loaded off my camera, but loaded off of the internet. And this will actually be available at some point in the training resources to play around with. I'm not sure when. They haven't finished. There probably will be some revisions to this. I don't know if this is the latest version. But I thought it'd be fun to use it as a demo.

Chris White (21:17):
Sorry. I got distracted there by the chat. There's a lot of chit-chat going on. The loading of the Survey App onto your smart device is nearly identical. You're going to turn the camera on. You're going to see the hotspot appear. You're going to connect to it. You enter in some numbers and then you're in. And then everything is all different. The funny thing is it's nearly identical in operation in most ways, but it's going to look a lot different. And there's quite a few advantages. So, let's go through them now. That'll be fun. Right?

Chris White (21:57):
Okay. So, what you're seeing on screen right now, let me just make sure from the chat that you guys can actually see my screen. I think you can. Okay, good. So, when you log in for the first time, it would just be like IMS-5, you wouldn't see anything. Right? And you're going to be on the project screen. So, a lot of the things I'm going to say are going to sound very familiar, especially if you're using IMS-5.

Chris White (22:25):
The project screen is exactly like the project screen on IMS-5, except there's some really tiny, subtle differences. So, you'll notice the tabs at the bottom are missing. So, those tabs have been replaced by a menu in the top left-hand corner. And there's a few different reasons for that. The main one is screen real estate. So, a lot of people use mobile devices that have smaller screens like phones. And in that scenario, having those tabs at the bottom is a little awkward. It's a good spot for your thumb. But we found that people really weren't flipping back and forth from tab to tab all that often, to be honest. I mean, they occasionally do, but for the most part, you go to the Survey tab, you just stay there the whole shoot, and then you leave it later. So, you didn't really need quick access for those things.

Chris White (23:07):
Either way, to get access to those, you click on this menu thing up here. You tap it, sorry, on your phone or your tablet. And you're going to get, again, a very familiar load. You've got Survey, project floor scan, settings, and reload app. So, reload app is the reload button from the Survey screen. So, it's just been moved here. And I like this a lot better because the reload button is like your go-to catch all for tech problems for troubleshooting. If you're having any kind of issue, like the data's not appearing or you try to move something and the buttons don't work, I don't know, whatever, tapping the reload should be like the first thing that you do. And often it was one of those things where you just forget it's there. Whereas here, it's pretty apparent that it's there. And it says, reload app, whereas the other one was a little circular. Anyway, they do the same thing. It just reloads the app off the camera.

Chris White (24:02):
So, I'll just show you real quick this screen. So, there's a few differences here that I didn't mention yet. One is that you've got obviously your projects. You're going to have a big list. But at the bottom you have this little notification bar. And the little notification bar is persistent through all the screens. Let me show you. So, if I go to the floor screen, it's still there. If I go to survey, it's still there. And it tells you your runtime, as in how many hours and minutes you have left, which is a very useful thing. And it also tells you the capacity left on your drive. Just kind of cool. It's good to know. So, you can see that right on the project screen. So the other project screen on IMS-5 had it at the top, remaining space, but now it's just always there. You always see it. So, it was quite cool.

Chris White (24:48):
You're going to see that there's a lot of consistency also applied to this UI. And I'll try to move faster. It's probably really boring. The entry for a project has a little edit button and a trashcan. So, trashcan deletes it, obviously. But the edit button allows you to, if clicked, edit the parameters for that. So, if you put in the wall thicknesses, 10 inches, and then later you're like, "What was I thinking? There's no way. It was 11 inches." You can come in here and you can change it. You can also change the name of the project now, so you can rename it from something.

Chris White (25:18):
So, if you in a hurry, and I do this all the time at shoots, I totally forget the address, even though I just got out of my car and was looking at it, and I just put it in Gary's house or whatever. And then later, I've settled down, I'm at the property, I'm halfway through the shoot. I'm like, "Oh, I should probably rename this." You can totally do that. Now, you can go back here. You can click edit. You can rename it really fast. It's quite nice.

Chris White (25:39):
So, the cool thing is that now, if we go to the floor screen, so I've created a project, let's pretend, and now I go to the floor screen, I've got the same little trashcan and edit buttons. So, you didn't have trashcan buttons before for this stuff. So, that's cool. You can delete things if you mess them up, but you can also rename them. And you can change the exterior wall thickness and the above or below grade from the edit button as well. So, that's quite cool.

Chris White (26:05):
And then this is the killer feature that everyone wants. Every scan on the scan screen has a trashcan button. People asked me for years, "How do I delete a scan? I just want to delete it." So now, you can. This is a dangerous thing to do, mind you, deleting scans while you're on-site shooting is usually a terrible idea. But now if you really want to do it, you can totally do it. And the reason that it's there, even though it's a terrible idea, is that sometimes you will have data that gets in your way, it's an obstacle. So, you shoot something, but then I don't know, while you're shooting, someone walks in front of the camera, or you tip it over, who knows, right? Maybe not tip it over, maybe tap the tripod. There you go. And so, the data is messed up. And it's really irritating to you when you're trying to shoot. Now, you can just delete that scan and pretend like it never existed. So, that's quite cool.

Chris White (26:56):
So, here's another cool thing on this screen. You can also rename scans, which is quite neat. So, but this is special. It's weird. We're getting into some nerdy stuff here, but this is quite cool. So, you'll notice that all the scans on this page are numbered. So, that's just like IMS-5. And that's on purpose. That way you can see when scans are auto created, what order that they were in. And the auto align software uses that order in Survey and in Stitch. So, it's good to keep that order.

Chris White (27:27):
Now, if you rename the scans in Stitch, you're renaming the whole thing, sorry, if you rename it on IMS-5. If you rename it on PLANIX, you rename it, but it retains that number. I can call it, I don't know, kitchen, if I can spell kitchen correctly. There you go. And then what it does is it keeps the number. I hope you guys can see that the top. It just says kitchen. So, that's super cool.

Chris White (27:57):
And the reason that's cool, if you guys don't already know, so if you're new and you've never had this happen before, you'll be at a house and an agent will call in and be like, "Hey, I know there's nothing in here, but I need you to call this a bedroom. Or this needs to be called the exercise room on the floor plans please." And you're like, "All right, sure." So, I would never remember that stuff. And I don't keep notes. I'm terrible at it. So, what I do is I rename the panel while I'm there. I just rename it exercise. And then that's a reminder. And the drafts people know that. And when they see that they'll name the room that.

Chris White (28:25):
This is the exact same thing, it's just that if someone comes to you later and they're like, "Hey, can you call that panel you shot 10 minutes ago? Or can you call that room, the conservatory?" And you're like, "I guess." And then you figure out how to make a note. Now, you can just go to panel seven, go edit and then call it whatever you want, which is quite cool. So, you're taking something that was in IMS-5 and you're refining it. Actually, everything I'm going to say is like that. A lot of lessons were learned with IMS-5 and they were slightly refined here. So, you can still do all this stuff in IMS-5. It's just that here, it might be a little bit easier.

Chris White (28:59):
So, let's go to the Survey page and I'll show you the good stuff. So, the Survey page has been redesigned to be more familiar and look to look more like a camera app. So, you can see that there's a button in the center that looks like an aperture. That's your shoot button. You've got an aligned button. And then you've got a shooting mode button. So, those are like your controls, those do stuff. So, IMS-5 is similar on a mobile phone, or even on a tablet. You're going to have that controls area.

Chris White (29:33):
The difference here is that, there's quite a few differences, is that there's a top bar now. So, the top bar is how you get to your tabs that were on the bottom before. And you've got these new buttons. So, these new ones are essentially convenience buttons, but they are awesome. So, watch this. So, I'm sure you've already noticed, I'm in split screen mode. So, that's a new thing. I can see my 360. And I can see my data at the same time if I want to. So, now that's really handy for when you've got a lot of screen to work with. Okay. So, I'm just going to make this bigger.

Chris White (30:05):
So, let's pretend we're on a tablet. How cool is that? I can see so much that a split screen mode makes sense. But let's suppose I'm like, "Oh, man, you know what? I'm on a little phone, and I can't really see the data well enough. I need more screen real estate." There's a little mode button up here that changes what you see as you click it.

Chris White (30:25):
So, I want you to watch. So, if I click it once, I have access to the 360. Oh, fun fact, you can see the full 360 while you're shooting. So, no more fish eyes. You just straight up, see the 360. Look, there's the PLANIX right there. I had completely forgotten about that benefit until just now. But yeah, so that's awesome.

Chris White (30:44):
But let's suppose that I want to get at that data and I'm on a tiny little screen. Well check this out. I can go full screen on the data now, and I could just make the best use out of that tiny little screen. So, that makes a phone more viable for someone who likes to have more space to work with the data.

Chris White (31:05):
So, let's suppose you're using a tablet, split screen mode might be for you. But if you're using a phone, you might flip-flop between the viewing, the panorama full screen and viewing the data full screen, if you're doing alignment, or you're reviewing what's going on.

Chris White (31:22):
Okay. So, at the top, there's two little arrows that go left and right. So, those allow you to cycle through. I don't know if you guys can see this. So, let me just go back. So, this, one of the little... I'll do it then actually. There you go. So, this one is blue. And if I hit right on the arrows, it goes to the next one, which is this one. All right. Well, fair enough. So, I can basically cycle through my panel.

Chris White (31:47):
So, let me switch back to the images, it's probably clear. There you go. So, as I click left and right, it'll go through all my scans. So, this is just like, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you've just shot, I don't know, seven panels in a row, and then you look over and you see, I don't know, your bag on the floor. And you're like, "Oh man, was that in the image? Shoot." So, now instead of going to the scan thing and then being like, "All right, what room was that? Maybe the first one." You don't have to really guess anymore. Or that you can do it that way as well. That's still there. You can still go back and re select scans from that screen. You can just hit right or left on these little arrows and just cycle through all your panoramas.

Chris White (32:31):
So, where that's really, really handy is when you want to review something that you previously shot. For the images, obviously, you just want to check it. Or when you're working with the data. Because this system, I mean, we'll get to alignment in a second, but if you align data, just like we would with IMS-5, but sometimes you just mess up. And so, maybe you've got a room that's way out of whack, five panels back, and you realize as you're shooting, you're like, "Shoot." So again, same thing, rather than click on the scan screen and find which number it is. You can just go back right from this screen and it will highlight the one that you're looking for, which is very, very cool.

Chris White (33:07):
So, on that note, let's talk about alignment. So, the killer feature that this camera has that means a lot to some people, and almost nothing to other people is automatic alignment. So, I'll be honest. When I'm shooting, I don't really try that hard to align data. I don't really care. I'm just going to take care of it later in Stitch. So, I mean, yeah, I'll do a little, if I have the time, but mostly I just want to have lunch. So, I'll just slap them together as best I can. And IMS-5 is fine with that. Basically, I don't use mapping mode. I just shoot my scan. And then when I go shoot my next one, I align it to the previous one, and then so on and so forth, until I get too lazy and then I stopped doing it. And then I do it in Stitch later.

Chris White (33:49):
With PLANIX though, it will auto align scans from one position to the next. So, if I scan the living room and then I walk five feet, and I scan the next scan in the living room, it will automatically align that data for me. It can mess up occasionally, but for the most part, it's really good. It's really good. I did my whole house, and I only had to realign a couple. And they were super weird. My house is super weird. So, I have two identical rooms. That's really abnormal for a house. I shouldn't say it's really abnormal. It's abnormal to have two rooms that are literally mirror images of each other. It's weird.

Chris White (34:23):
So, the system uses the data, and it compares what date it has with what data it just captured. And it looks at the order that you shot it in. And it looks at the compass. It looks at all these different variables, and it tries to auto align the data for you. So, that means that it's not like it's magic. I know, it does feel like magic, but it's not going to be able to align dissimilar areas of a house. So, it's not like you can shoot the [inaudible 00:34:45], and then walk to the back bedroom and shoot it, and have it align. There's no data in common. That doesn't make any sense. There's nothing to align there. So, that's going to be a struggle.

Chris White (34:54):
Working with the automatic alignment is its own whole thing. But long story short, it really helps if you move in a logical progression throughout the property, which most people do anyway. So, it's really not a big deal. And it's very helpful if you make sure that you have line of sight from one scan to the next. Because if you go around a corner, then again, same problem, there's not going to be data in common from one scan to the next. So, it's going to be difficult for it to align.

Chris White (35:23):
Either way, you can shoot entire property without aligning any data and have it just be done when you load it into Stitch, which is fantastic. So, the really magical thing here, which I'll show you, is that with auto alignment on, it's going to do most of the work for you. But if you want to take control, you totally can.

Chris White (35:42):
So, I'll show you right now. If I click this align button, I can now do exactly what you'd expect. I can click and drag, to move. And then it would be one finger and drag to move on a tablet or phone, and then two fingers and drag and rotate, just like you can IMS-5. So, that means if you're like me and you're a little bit sloppy and you just shoot wherever you feel like, and you want to align it yourself, go ahead. There's nothing wrong with that. It's even easier here. You just tap a line and then put it where you want.

Chris White (36:14):
The data is very, very easy to work with on this system. I'm sure a lot of you've already figured this out, without me even saying anything. You can zoom in and out of the whole, all the data at once, which is quite cool. You know what I mean? You couldn't do that with IMS-5. You have to tap map actions, grow canvas. So, that's all gone. You don't need any of that stuff. And working with the data is a lot easier because you have more screen real estate as well, which is quite cool.

Chris White (36:45):
So, I briefly mentioned the shoot button. It does exactly what you'd imagine it does. You tap it and it's going to take a panel around. Now, all that stuff with the plus one button, it's all gone. When you tap the scan button, what's going to happen is, just like any other camera, it's just going to make a panorama and measure all in one go. So, that's different than IMS-5 in two ways. One, there's no step like pressing plus one, whether you do it before or after. So, that's one thing gone. But also it's going to do 360 degrees. So, there's no rotation. So, it's just boom, all done.

Chris White (37:22):
So, I'm sure what a lot of you have figured out is that, well, if you're standing next to the camera, you're going to be in the picture. So, what do you do? So, you've got two options and that's where this mode switcher comes in, this other button over here that says one and two. So, if you just tap it and you take an image, you'll be in it unless you hide. So, hiding is, well, I think it's fun. I don't know. It's up to you. But I mean, sometimes it's really easy, you just duck around a door or a corner. Maybe you're shooting a powder room, that's not difficult to do. Sometimes hiding is the faster option.

Chris White (37:55):
Two shot mode, and when you turn it on, so when you tap this button it turns blue and engages. It means that when you tap the shoot button, it will take an image, and then it will give you instructions here. Let's see if it actually says it, maybe.

Chris White (38:09):
There you go. Cool. So, it says, "Please walk around on the other side of the camera and push the button again." So, what you do is you have to stand in front of the view screen for your first shot. So, that's the Theta one. That's what we're considering like the front of the camera. And then you do your first shot, and then you would walk around to the other side of that camera, and then you would shoot again. So, those two shots are combined in camera, and the image data with you in it gets chucked, and it combines the two images without you in it. So, that means that if you're in a scenario where you can't hide, I don't know, something where you need the marketing images. You need it to be able to not have you in it, but there's nowhere to hide. It's not a problem. You don't have to climb under your tripod. You can just use the two shot mode.

Chris White (39:02):
The two shot mode is slower. That's the downside. So, two shot mode is going to take you a few extra seconds. But sometimes with regards to hiding, it sometimes takes longer. So, it's usually it's a wash, but anyway, it gives you some options. So, you can do whatever suits you. And it's very easy. It was designed to be very easy to flip flop between those modes. So, just constantly in and out, one shot mode, two shot mode. And the reason that that's just awesome, is it mimics the workflow with IMS-5, where you turn HDR on and off.

Chris White (39:31):
So, if you don't know already, HDR takes up a lot of extra time. So, if you can not use HDR, you can save a lot of time. So, built into that little menu in IMS-5, you can turn HDR off, shoot panoramas really fast, where HDR is required. And we kept a similar style of workflow, where you have a toggle, and you can shoot in either mode, just dynamically given the circumstances that make sense for you.

Chris White (39:55):
The other thing I didn't mention is that at all times, or maybe I didn't mention it, I'll mention it again, in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you'll always see your project, the floor, and then the scan that you're on. So, it's just like IMS-5. So, it should be very, very familiar looking for the most part.

Chris White (40:13):
So, we're running out of time. So, I'll just very quickly show you the settings screen. It's a setting screen. It's got some settings. But auto align can be turned off. So, there are some people like me who are weird and just maybe don't want auto align. There might be some properties where auto align just won't won't perform well.

Chris White (40:33):
I'll give you an example, a dentist's office. So, let's suppose it's a very uniform commercial structure where every single room is identically sized. That's going to confuse the auto align. So, you just turn it off and align it yourself. Often those properties are so easy to align that it's not like you're going to save any time in auto align anyway.

Chris White (40:51):
HDR, you can turn on and off as well. Coverage opacity, I don't know if you guys saw that, but if I... Oh, I forgot to save it. There you go. So, there's a coverage mode built in now. And instead of being just on or off, it's an opacity. So, you can just leave it on all the time and have it be there as a tool, if you want it. If you don't want it, that's fine too. You can turn it completely off if you like.

Chris White (41:17):
Same as before, you can change the sound. Sorry, I didn't say same as before, but you could turn it off before. Quiet mode is really nice. It means that there's no beeps whatsoever, so you can be completely silent, like a Ninja. And that's handy if you're in a space where there's people or whatever. You can change the units. You can change the Wi-Fi band. That's pretty fancy. And all this stuff, super, super familiar, right? Access point name, power time-out, Wi-Fi password, all that stuff.

Chris White (41:45):
There's a couple extra things that are different here that relate to the way the system is set up. So, I won't go into detail because like I said, we're running out of time. But the Theta needs to be aligned to the laser. And that just means that you follow a really simple setup procedure, where you tell the laser how it lines up to the sensor. And it'll happen on start. The first time you load up the camera, it'll ask you to do that. It takes like two seconds, super easy. But that's a thing that's been added.

Chris White (42:15):
Okay. Where are we at? Okay. I'm going to describe to you in the last 10 minutes, what it's like to shoot with this camera, if you're going to shoot a whole house. So, what you're going to notice is that it's very similar to shooting with IMS-5. You take the camera into every single space and you capture that space. The difference is in the actual speed of the hardware, like how fast it is to just complete that task and the amount of data you can capture because the range is slightly better. So, you don't need as many necessarily. But to create a viable virtual tour, they're going to be very similar in terms of panel placement. So, that's not really a big win.

Chris White (43:02):
The biggest difference overall is that there's far less physical work you have to do. And it sounds really obvious, but you don't need to manually rotate the camera with PLANIX, like you do with IMS-5. Does that save you a lot of time? Well, not necessarily. But I mean, it can dramatically reduce the likelihood of making a mistake. So, I'll probably, I'll say at a 30 panels, I'll probably blow two of them. You know what I mean? Just because I'm not paying attention. And I rotated around and I spin it too far, and it goes past the dividend. I pushed the button.

Chris White (43:36):
So, if you're more attentive to details than me, maybe you don't have this problem, but all that's just gone. It doesn't really matter for the most part. You still have to be careful not to tap the camera or anything. And you have to hide or use the two shot mode. You say you have to think a little bit. But for the most part it's very, very similar. You're just going into each space, you're capturing that space, and then you're moving on. And the goal is the same as before, it's coverage, right? You're trying to capture enough data for the drafters to be able to draft floor plans, and enough data to create a virtual tour that gives potential buyers what they want, which is to be able to see features of the home that interest them.

Chris White (44:18):
So, that process of capturing whole house it's very similar. It's just slightly faster. And when you are taking that data and putting into Stitch, exactly the same, plug the USB drive, plug in your computer, load it into Stitch. Submitting it to the portal, again, exactly the same, no difference whatsoever.

Chris White (44:40):
So, I will just briefly mention, actually, no, I'll go into a little bit of detail. So, the common question, and I'm sure it's probably in the questions already, but what is the difference between the IMS-5 and PLANIX in terms of visual quality? And that is complicated because there's not a simple answer. So, is one better than the other? No, they're pretty much the same. But it depends. It's a subjective thing. So, what I mean by that is that you've got two completely different ways of making 360s with the two different cameras.

Chris White (45:16):
So, some people like IMS-5 better, some people like PLANIX better. It's kind of a wash. But the reason is that with IMS-5, you have three images that are then stitched together to make one image. But with PLANIX, you have two images. And they're using completely different methods of post-processing before they get to Stitch.

Chris White (45:36):
But in general, they should be very, very similar. So, you shouldn't see a huge difference from one to the other. If you start looking, you're going to see it. But it's very much like if you were to take like a 360 and you Photoshop yourself out of it. And when you look at it, you see the horrible hack job you did. And you're like, "Oh man, that's terrible." But when other people look at it, they don't even notice. Right? Because they're not looking for it. So, it's like that. If you look closely, yes, absolutely, you can see the difference between the two systems, but visually they're pretty much on par. They might be better than others depending on the circumstances, because they're just different. Different lenses behave in different ways when they're exposed to sunlight, direct sunlight, or when they're in low light conditions or whatever.

Chris White (46:17):
So, what I will do now is I will attempt to answer as many questions as possible in our remaining time. I see 17 questions. That's outrageous. You guys should be ashamed of yourself. I'm just kidding. That's good.

Chris White (46:31):
Okay. First question. You'll probably get this, but I'd like to know more detail about the benefits of the calibrated PLANIX? What can we expect for accuracy? Okay. So, the PLANIX Pro has a specially calibrated lens. I am not a super duper expert on how that's done exactly, but I do know that the main benefit of that is that when you're doing measurements, on-screen measurements, there is less measurement uncertainty. So, you'll know if that's valuable for you, if you're measuring things in 3D space. So, if you're measuring on the floor plan, the floor plans aren't more accurate or anything. They're the same. It's really for 3D space measurements.

Chris White (47:14):
So, if you plan to get into commercial applications, where you're going to be measuring equipment on a floor, and it's really critical that you'd be able to pinpoint things, then that's what that's for. So, in regular, everyday use, without advanced measurement or onscreen measurement, you're not going to see a huge difference. You're not going to see any difference. But when you're working with advanced measurement there's less uncertainty. There you go. I hope that was a good answer. It was big. I'm going to say, I answered that one.

Chris White (47:48):
All right, next one. Will you add a new advanced measurement option of just clicking on two points and it will give you measurements? In 3D? You mean on the viewer? I imagine this what you mean. I have no idea to be honest, maybe. Advanced measurements is pretty important to be able to figure out where things are, so it might be improved later, either way. If you have a suggestion about what you want, I think I know what you mean, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.

Chris White (48:14):
But the best place to make your voice heard is on our forum. It's been very active lately, super fun. There's a feature suggestions category. We do read that. So, if you don't like the way something works, you're like, "Oh, I wish tags were blinking, and they had arrows and stuff." Go put it in there. Because you say that there, and then someone else says, "Oh, that's a cool idea. I want that too." And then that adds extra weight to it, so it can gain some momentum. So, I hope that answered that.

Chris White (48:45):
Is the Theta program to shoot HDR on? No. So, I've messed around with it, with the HDR on with Theta, it's not super important to use that. I forget what raw format I use, it's DNG probably. Not a big win there.

Chris White (49:06):
Okay. Next one. Can you use the same Survey for both cameras? I want to use both or the new camera. No, you cannot. So, you have to use the old version of Survey with IMS-5, and the new version of Survey with PLANIX. Done.

Chris White (49:18):
One more question on the battery for this Z1, "I've had to send my Z1 back to Ricoh to get the battery replaced. If you charge it by any other means, other than the USB connection or to your laptop. Just the computer battery is not warrantied and it cost $400 to get replaced. Do you know over time, will the direct charging of the unit have any effect in the battery life or use?" It should be fine. There should not be any issue. There's circuitry built into the Theta. I'm no expert by the way, don't quote me on this. But to protect that battery, and there should be no issue with PLANIX ever. But there you go. Done.

Chris White (49:54):
"Is there a max number of scans? What happens if we go over 9999?" Oh, man, I think that you hear a fun little music sound and then there's a payout, and then the coins come out of the PLANIX unit. Yeah. That's probably what happens. I don't know. I think it just resets back to zero. But that's a great question. Tom, thank you. That was a good one actually.

Chris White (50:18):
"Will this new UI get rolled out to IMS-5 eventually?" So, I'm going to be honest with you guys. Okay. I'm going to say, probably not, but I don't know. I don't get your hopes up. The IMS-5 is already good. And I don't know if there's a huge amount of value in doing that. But if that's, again, feature suggestion, if that's something you want, and you're like, "This new Survey is the greatest thing since sliced bread, bring it to IMS-5." Go put that in the future suggestions category. Anything is possible. We have discussed it before.

Chris White (50:52):
Flying through these. "Will you be able to edit panels on Stitch with new camera?" Oh boy, how do you, can you ever? Okay. So, the new camera is very forgiving, PLANIX is very forgiving with regards to editing panels. So, remember there's no like fish eyes anymore. The output is just straight up like one... Oops. I got my thing just dinged. Anyway, sorry.

Chris White (51:20):
The output from the Theta is just one accurate triangular image. So, when you want to edit those images, it's easy. It's super easy. There's no fish eyes anymore. So, as soon as you load it into Stitch, and you might see something and say, "Oh, I've got to edit that." When you right click and choose open folder, you'll have just one image. It's just H1. You can load that into Photoshop or whatever software you want to use, and do whatever you like. Just one image, it's the full echo triangular.

Chris White (51:45):
So, for IMS-5, we call it that at photosphere. And that's the final output of the three images, all stitched together. Well, you just get that right from the beginning with PLANIX. It's just there because that's just how the camera works. So, you straight up have the 360s. And you can do some weird stuff just earlier. So most people don't bother to ever do this, but if you wanted to, you can take that accurate triangular panel. You can bring it into Photoshop. You can correct weird lights. You can de-noise it. You can do whatever you want, really. The sky is the limit.

Chris White (52:14):
So, the new system is much friendlier for post-processing outside of Stitch, because you only have to deal with that one single image, which is quite cool.

Chris White (52:26):
Is the PLANIX supposed to replace IMS-5 eventually? No. So, the IMS-5 is not discontinued. It might be out of stock, but that's because people are buying them like crazy. So, I mean, this is the season, so that stuff is going to happen, especially with weird COVID issues. But the answer is no, not unless there's something else that I don't know that happens.

Chris White (52:52):
So, will this app work for IMS-5? No. No, it won't, unfortunately. Can you hide below the camera beside the tripod or do you have to be out of space? So, technically yes, you can hide underneath the camera if you really wanted to. That would be awesome and funny. But it's much faster from my experience to just duck around a corner and tap the button. So, just like IMS-5, while the camera is working, you can move it. So, imagine it a bit like this, you tap a button, you're behind a door or something. You walk over it. By the time you get the camera, pick it up, it's still processing anyway. Right? And then you pick up the camera and you move to the next position. And when you put it down, it's then ready. You see it on screen, you're ready to go. So, the time taken to hide really isn't lost time anyway, because you couldn't reshoot anyhow because the camera's still doing stuff.

Chris White (53:44):
But two shot mode is meant to be the way that you hide essentially. So, you shoot facing one direction, and then you walk around and you shoot facing the other. And then it's going to combine those in camera automatically for you.

Chris White (53:56):
"With the IMS-5, I've switched between HDR indoor at beach with the same set of panels often. Can we do the same with this?" Standing outside the door with dark side, bright side [inaudible 00:54:08]. Okay. So, here is one of the areas where the IMS-5 wins. You don't have any control over the HDR and the brackets, and the exposure on the Theta when using PLANIX. It's all automatic. It's very, very good. But it's all automatic. So, the answer is, nope, you can't do that. That is an IMS-5 only thing.

Chris White (54:39):
"Please speak to more of the difference in quality of the actual image, comparing Z1 and IMS-5." Sure. Oh, sorry, Trevor, you asked the same thing. How does the image quality compare? So, back to the image quality again, they're going to be very, very similar. You're not going to see a humongous difference either way. So, I know what everyone wants, right? And unfortunately, you're not going to get it with this camera. There's no bumping resolution. There's no benefit. That means a tour made with IMS-5, will look just as good, and in some cases better, depending on your skill level, as one made by PLANIX. That's not why you would buy this camera.

Chris White (55:13):
So, if you want increased image resolution, you're not going to get it. There are subtle differences between the two cameras, but for the most part, it's very, very similar. The resolutions is identical. There's a slightly different ways that the lenses handle color and like flare and stuff like that, which you will see if you, again, if you'd start to really look for it, you'll see it.

Chris White (55:37):
"Any chance we can get point cloud files on a feature request list? Given the accuracy, it'd be great if..." I agree. That would be super cool. Put that in the feature suggestions category of the forum, go for it. That would be awesome. Someone else brought that up the other day too.

Chris White (55:50):
"Can we use two PLANIX systems, [inaudible 00:55:52] combine in Stitch?" Yes, you totally can. It is much more challenging though. In fact, maybe impossible to use IMS-5 and PLANIX on one big shoot. I think that is a challenge right now. Technically, I think the drafters could do it. They really needed to. But in Stitch it'll confuse the heck out of the software, if you try to use PLANIX and IMS-5. So, the answer is, yes, you can use multiple PLANIXes.

Chris White (56:19):
"Are there any issues with the Ricoh, to get the Ricoh for support to iGuide?? Ricoh has its own warranty. I don't a hundred percent know how that stuff works exactly. But you don't go to Ricoh for support necessarily. I could be wrong about that. I'll check into that for you. I don't know.

Chris White (56:37):
Okay. Does PLANIX have the same mapping mode, similar to the PLANIX, or some of the other one with less drift? So, there is no mapping mode. Essentially, mapping mode has been tossed, because now every time you scan, it just combines that data under your previously captured data. No more mapping required. Mapping mode is gone. Auto map mode, there you go, that's it, with its official name.

Chris White (57:00):
Can you edit in Stitch, you still do now? Yep. It's identical. There's no difference. You load all your panels into Stitch. Stitch will auto adjust them all for you. Right? You don't have to do anything. And then if you want, you can go in and the adjustment screen is nearly identical. The only thing missing from the adjustment screen, all the stuff you're familiar with is still there, brightness and contrast, and blues and yellows or whatever.

Chris White (57:19):
There's a section in Stitch that's really just for IMS-5 and IMS-4 as well, where you can change the stitching. You can actually affect the pitch and all that stuff. But none of that exists for the Theta. So, if that's just missing. So, that's a bunch of stuff you don't have to worry about.

Chris White (57:37):
With closets and spaces that you need measurements, do you just take two shots, one with the door open, one with the door closed? Is there a way to take your single shot? With PLANIX or with IMS-5, if you need to get a closet, with PLANIX, you just put the camera in there and do the one shot. You'll be in the image, but who cares? It's just for the closet. With IMS-5, turn HDR off and shoot the whole thing, the whole three, rather than doing a partial panel. You can do a partial panel if you want to. I don't really like them. My personal preference is not easy. But with PLANIX, there is no partial panel. It's 360 all the time. So, you just shoot it. You're done.

Chris White (58:13):
Okay. That was the last question. We're all done. 3:06, that's not too bad. Thank you everybody for coming. I really appreciate it. That was awesome. Your questions were great. Have a great rest of your day. And if you have any follow-up questions, contact support, I'm sure they'd be happy to help.

Chris White (58:41):
Oh yeah, to that point, we are working on more samples. That has been quite a struggle with COVID, just getting to properties that we can use with the new system has been a big thing. But yeah, that's on its way.