Video: How Matterport streamlines processes for designers, builders, and operators | Video courtesy of Matterport YouTube Channel | 18 March 2022


Moderator

Matterport Senior Evangelist Amir Frank

Speakers

1. Matterport AEC Product Management Clark Morgan
2. Matterport Customer Advocacy Director Sarah Suwanjindar
3. Perkins+Will Director of Digital Practice, Associate Principal Nick Cameron
4. Gilbane Building Company Director of Strategic Projects Joel Vande Boom

Transcript (video above)

[00:00:00]
Amir Frank: Welcome, thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to a really great webinar and lot of good questions from you all. Of course, we are here to talk about Matterport in streamlining the process of designers, builders, and operators. This is all about the AAC industry and how Matterport can make your job more efficient.

Today this webinar is being co-hosted by my colleagues Clark Morgan and Sarah Suwanjindar. A lot of great information and we're going to talk to some people in the industry, so really looking forward to it. What we're going to cover today is right here, we'll talk about what a digital twin is, I'll go ahead and take care of that. Then we'll get into how to collaborate, optimize, maximize, and increase efficiency.

How people are actually doing it right now in the field. Of course, we'll open it up to Q&A at the end. Like I said, we have the customer panel with some guests from Perkins&Will and Gilbane. Let's go ahead and just dive right in. All right, so co-hosting with me today, as I mentioned, is Clark Morgan and Sarah Suwanjindar with Matterport.

Sarah will be speaking with Nick and Joel later on in the webinar. We'll take care of that. A little housekeeping before we dive right in. Questions that you have for anybody, whether it's me, Clark, Sarah, or the panelists, please go ahead and put those into the Q&A panel. You can see that in your Zoom browser, Zoom window or wherever you can tap on Q&A.

For anything other than questions to any of us, please, absolutely you should feel free to use the chat. Great place to collaborate and talk [inaudible 00:02:01] yourselves and see who's coming in from where and get to know each other. I'd like to see these webinar as a sort of a meetup and that's it. Yes, as mentioned also, this Webinar is being recorded and we'll have the Q&A at the end.

But again, go ahead and submit your questions at anytime. We are happy to pause the conversation and address any relevant questions right off the bat. All right, so what is a digital twin? I'm guessing in your industry, you've already heard about digital twins and becoming a little bit more familiar with them. Just wanted to go over this.

According to Forrester Research, a digital twin is, as you see here, a digital representation of a physical thing's data, state, relationship, and behavior. What Matterport really finds interesting is the data. That is what we focus on and what we collect. Whenever you go out and create your digital twin, you get photo-realistic 2D images.

The full 360 degrees, as well as depth data and measurement and those two combined can do a lot, a lot more than what you might think. As far as how you go about capturing and creating your digital twin, There's a whole lot of options these days. I actually couldn't fit them all in one slide. Not all the cameras. We have more 360 cameras than what you see here, but this is the breakdown.

We've got the Matterport Pro2, like a BOK. If you're familiar with high-end accurate in its measurement quality, 360 cameras, incredibly fast. A lot of great use cases there. We've just introduced Matterport access. So you or anybody you know I suppose sub-contractors and the like can use their phone in their pocket to capture a digital twin.

So really, really great and of course, Capture services and just can hire somebody to do it. Those are all great options and it completely depends on your needs and what you're doing with it. What else? As far as translating that data from the capture devices, from the camera into what you know as a digital twin. We use something called Cortex.

it's an AI engine that was developed in Matterport and it takes all that data and you upload if you've never captured a Matterport model before, you are on-site, use something like an iPad or iPhone or mobile device. You can use Android with their connected camera. You collect all that information, then you send it up to the Cloud to be processed.

That goes through our Cortex AI engine, which creates the digital twin, which then you can do so many different things with. That's, the digital twin. I think that's about it for me. I'm going to hand it off to Clark to take it from here.

[00:05:17]
Clark Morgan: - Right, thanks [inaudible 00:05:18]. I'm going to quickly review some of Matterports' latest innovations for AAC. We really like to tell the story about the ease of capture into our unique ability to interact with your digital twin. Then a platform which allows you to collaborate through Notes and Mattertags.

Then what's most interesting and applicable to the AAC industry is our ability to extract into derivative assets. Last year and this year we've been rolling out some new initiatives such as Autodesk or Matterport, BIM file, Revit Plugin. I am going to quickly talk about those on the next slide. Next slide, slide nine, we have the Matterport Plugin for Revit, which launched in December.

Could you move to the next slide for me. Thank you. All right, so now available in the Autodesk app store, it's a Revit Plugin, allows you to select your space and download any Matterport asset that's available. Many of you are familiar probably with the MatterPak. What the Revit Plugin does is it will consume the point cloud from the MatterPak.

It will use the Autodesk SDK convert automatically into a recap file and turn it into a new Revit project for you. The Revit Plugin was developed first and now all of our new derivative assets are accessible through the Revit Plugin. Next slide, please [inaudible 00:06:57]. MatterPak. Everyone's probably familiar with this.

It is a Add On that's available in your space. After you've captured, you have the ability to order a MatterPak. With the MatterPak, you get a colorized low density XYZ file. You also get JPEG of your floor plans and a PDF all in one file. Again, with the Plugin allows you to grab that XYZ, pull it into Revit, and integrate into your point Cloud-based workflow.

It also includes an OBJ file, which you can extract once you've purchased the MatterPak. The OBJ is not available through the Matterport Plugin just because of file compatibility. Next slide is our Matterport BIM file. Really exciting innovation that we released last year. What this does is it, completes the whole scan to BIM process as many people are familiar.

Using the Matterport platform, we make it extremely simple to capture your space, turn it into a digital twin. Now, with the BIM file, your digital twin can be converted into a design asset that your design team can take and use as an as-built background or the beginning of your design process. More about BIM file Add On, got three different options.

There is a base option, that's just the architecture. There's a second option which includes interior furniture. You get all of your architectural components and then we add in furniture. Then our top of the line product also includes the MEP all in one file. It is all compatible with Revit 2020 or later, also accessible through the Revit Plugin.

You also get derivative assets such as a 2D, DWG and a reflected ceiling plan. Next slide, so excited to announce next week. Available for everybody will be the E57 Add On. This is automated Digital Twin to Point Cloud products. It provides an end-to-end creation and registration process for with a high density Point Cloud.

This end-to-end workflow that we've designed has never been done before. It allows your Matterport space to be converted into an E57. Matterport now allows you to save somewhere between 10 and 20 hours compared to a legacy desktop based registration workflow. If you're familiar with extremely complex desktop based registration tools, we're doing in the Cloud.

We're allowing customers who utilize the Matterport platform to then generate an E57 which can be pulled into your 3D workflow, again, also available through the Revit Plugin. A little more about the E57. See on the right we've got a couple of images to compare the different products that we offer. On the top is the MatterPak XYZ file, which is a low density Point Cloud that works for many situations.

But there's also certain workflows where you need a higher density Point Cloud. As you can see in this photo on the top, it's hard to make out some of the components. Whereas the E57 Point Cloud, you can actually see the fence that exists that almost looks like it does not appear in the lower density Point Cloud.

That gives you an idea of how there's up to 10 times the data available inside that file type. It also unlocks the full capability of the Pro2 and be okay by taking the full density of the assets created, we are putting that into an E57. While E57 is vendor neutral and compatible with a lot of common software and AEC.

You've got the full Autodesk platform like Trimble. We cover the whole gamut by allowing you to export your Digital Twin into a Point Cloud. Just to recap on what we talked about here. Our top of the line product that we offer that we're most proud about right now is the Revit Plugin and the BIM file. The ability to generate a BIM file using Revit or sorry.

They generate a BIM file using the Matterport platform and then pull that into your Revit workflow. We are also again allowed for that with the MatterPak XYZ and E57 files. The difference between the two is the Matterport BIM file isn't already created Revit building project, where is the Revit Plugin allows you to pull in point clouds into Revit for creating your own project from scratch.

Quickly just to review why Matterport for AEC or the design build, operate community. Really what we're doing is we're trying to decrease the cost of documenting your projects, increasing productivity through collaboration and ability to extract derivative assets, and also save time by being able to capture measurements easily.

But also in an environment that's highly visual and photorealistic for your teams to communicate. The construction side again, we're cutting costs by decreasing your as-built production time by using the Matterport BIM files and the MatterPak E57. Then all the same processes apply really to the operators as well. They need to easily capture a space, know what's existing, what's out there, and being able to communicate and visualize across geographic locations so I will hand it over to Sarah.

[00:13:08]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Thanks Clark for that great overview about Matterport and AEC. Joined with us today. I'm pleased to welcome Nick Cameron, Director of Digital Practices and Associate Principal at Perkins&Will, as well as Joel Vande Boom Directory of Strategic Projects at Gilbane Building Company. Welcome to you both and thank you for being here today.

We're going to kick it off hear a little bit from Nick Cameron at Perkins&Will, first. Nick, welcome, and for anyone no familiar with Perkins&Will, you give us an overview of the company and the design and architecture related services that the company provides.

[00:13:48]
Nick Cameron: We're architecture and design firm. We're the second largest in the world. We started out in 1930 in Chicago and have grown to over 25 studios across the globe. We offer pro-services for healthcare, higher range, K through 12, really running the gamut up until small retail or houses and things like that.

[00:14:19]
Sarah Suwanjindar: The overview. Nick, can you tell us a little bit about your role, what you've specifically focused on it Perkins&Will, and how are you using Matterport within your group today?

[00:14:29]
Nick Cameron: Sure. I'm an architect for the first half of my year, first half of my career focused on design and operations and management. My role really is to create networks, but not computer networks. Networks of people knowledge. To use those networks to solve our clients greatest challenges by people with hardware such as Matterport and software and applications.

For us Matterport was just an easy thing. We knew that we wanted to be doing more around social scanning. A lot of the devices on the market are too complicated and hard to use. We don't need the level of fidelity that they offer as much as I think the BLK 360 is beautiful object and want one. We don't need it for what we do.

If we do then we can hire someone or work directly with Matterport. Big chunk of what we do is interior spaces that will be working on test fits that we'll be doing. That allows us to have our team virtually return without actually leaving their house, which was a great thing last year, to measure or we look at something or even start to model from the MatterPak.

It saves us a lot of time. We have, I think, 8-10 Camaros across the US and Canada right now. We have two that float between some of our smaller offices, but also when there's high demand like yesterday we got a request. I have one of the floating scanners be flowing down to Dallas because it's just overbooked because of the it's ease to use.

[00:16:27]
Sarah Suwanjindar: That's great and in some instances, talking with you, I know you're utilize capture services and when you need it to be BLK level scan and know you've also experimented with them. I think it was the iPhone in terms of just collecting some very raw data about a space. If you're just out taking a survey is you're just at the on that object.

[00:16:53]
Nick Cameron: You see on the rear now, as we did work with Matterport services to scan the exterior building, this is our headquarters here in world for the Chicago office anyway, we're on the top floor and we took over what were the Wrigley executive suite? We worked closely with the building and it's going to be it's 100th anniversary. They're redoing lighting.

They've involved us and we thought the best way that I could do this without having our people hanging out on Windows to measure things, was to scan so it was great to team up and create these scans and then we can make renderings, and we shared the information with our lighting consultant who at the time was in San Francisco, couldn't come out here because of COVID.

We were able to share models back and forth at very high fidelity. The scanning was all done in one morning. I think it was one of our architects, senior architects with a technician. The other story that you mentioned was a walk-through for an interview through space and everyone's taking pictures with their camera but I had downloaded the Matterport app and scanned a few spaces including the gym.

The auditorium in places that for those that weren't in the interview or weren't part of that walk-through, didn't have a sense of that scale. We were able to share that very quickly and then what we realized was, well, we can share this with the client in the interview. Also we can scan this space, we're starting to understand the space, we've created sections.

We know the height, we know the width, and we know what can fit in there, and we ended up winning that job and then going and scanning the entire building. Actually it was a campus, so it was a series of buildings from this particular client.

[00:18:45]
Sarah Suwanjindar: If you get the intelligence upfront to have a leg up on the project and the bidding. That sounds wonderful. You mentioned the pandemic, but we've been in conversation since the onset of the pandemic and it sounds like Matterport really becomes part of your ever-present standard workflow.

Can you describe a little bit more about some of the benefits and results that you're finding just in terms of that ongoing collaboration, the documentation, and the speed in which you're able to produce these bin files now with the point cloud and the Matterport's.

[00:19:24]
Nick Cameron: We think is really interesting and something that we've talked about it another calls with Clark and others is now that we've been using the Matterport for probably, I think three years now, we have a series of scans from pre-construction, during construction, and then the finished product, what we hand off to their clients.

It's amazing to see that progression and that's where we've had more teams now want to use the Matterport, once they see the full journey of what you can deliver to our clients. Also, as they talk to team members who are in the early phases of design. Being able to move through a space without having to go there with a tape measure or a back with a tape measure.

It can speed up design iterations much quicker. Also from the matter packs even the simplest ones using that along with the OBJ file saying right out to cut some sections, get dimensions and start to create Revit models. Models really at the fidelity that you need for this type of work. They don't have a lot of detail, they don't need a lot of detail.

It's everything that we put into it that really is about more of the design there so it becomes part of a sandbox. I think the other important thing that we like a lot with Matterport is we can send someone a link and they can open it on their phone. They don't need a $3,000 computer with an RTX card to look at point clouds.

There's few people on the team that needs to be doing that and that's where it opens it up to the leadership on the project, being able to look through and measure and then sharing that with clients and giving them that experience on their phone.

[00:21:17]
Sarah Suwanjindar: It sounds like it's just so key for decision-making is what we hear again and again in the AEC, in the case of AEC. It sounds like it gives you not only that visual reference for clash detection when you're in the design and moving into the build phase and still consulting through the build phase.

All the way through to inspections in some instances when you need that extra verification on some of those details, can you discuss in situations where you're using that or how you're using it on a regular basis at that stage in terms of decision-making or inspections. Just for clarity, at that juncture.

[00:22:01]
Nick Cameron: There times when we'll bring a camera on-site during construction. Again, there's an expense with sending people on site so if you have one or two people that are there, but there may be a team member who's not there, who doesn't need to be there the whole day, so it's just expensive travel and moving back and forth where we've scanned.

It is very particular spaces or installations so that they can be reviewed and made sure that they're being installed correctly. We've also, for new builds typically we'll create or working with our construction partners to create mock-ups. There'll be a mock-up of curtain wall, and the stone, and how the building is going to come together and we'll scan those as well.

That'll become a reference in the studio for people to look at because it's at full-scale. They can look at the details, but they can really stand back and take a look at the whole thing and move around it which I think was something we hadn't thought about it as someone in our DC office, Kim woody, I'll give them a shout out because it just you give people the tools and they come back.

Do new things with them that I never would've thought of. Then the last thing I'd say with our clients is when we walk them through this finished space, that have a Matterport or to have a scan on an iPad and say, Hey, remember how bad this used to look. We did an amazing job along with our building partners. We've transformed the space for you and for your co-workers.

[00:23:46]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Incredible. Thank you for sharing Nick. Great use cases here. I know we'll have a few more questions for you in the Q&A. If you have any questions from Nick's thoughts here, be sure to type those in and we'll circle back around and open it up for general QA.

You can utilize the chat function or sorry, the Q&A function or the chat option to type in your questions there. With that, I'd like to switch over to welcome Joel. Welcome, Joel, Director of strategic projects at Gilbane Building Company. Joel, thanks for being here today.

[00:24:29]
Joel Vande Boom: Thank you.

[00:24:31]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Just to kick it off, for anyone not familiar with Gilbane, can you give us an overview of the company, and I know you offer a full slate of construction and facilities-related projects. Can you just give us an overview of the company?

[00:24:46]
Joel Vande Boom: Thank you. Gilbane is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Is one of the largest privately held family own construction and real estate development of the industry. Really interesting stories actually founded in 1870 as a family carpentry business. Right now they are actually participating in the fourth, fifth, and sixth generation of the family.

They're really concentrating and select markets still in North America as well as internationally, and Gilbane has more than 45 office locations around the world. Again, they're are an industry leader in construction real estate and one of the key things in why again I'm just proud to be part of this team and keep pushing things forward is they're very client-focused and very great with family and core values of care and we've been doing some great things together and that is Gilbane.

[00:25:34]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Excellent, great summary. Can you tell us, just dive in a little bit more about your specific goal at Gilbane Joel, and give us an overview of how you're using Matterport across the organization at Gilbane.

[00:25:50]
Joel Vande Boom: Currently, like I mentioned, directors studio projects across the Midwest. Again, we're very fortunate we work with a lot of great clients, and a lot of those clients is more related to existing conditions. Which again, what's interesting is 85% of real estate, if not pushing 90s is already existing.

How do you best maximize those spaces with cap expense from customers? Actually what we've been focusing on is that customer continuity from beginning to end and helping them on any project, small, big, wherever best alliance for them. That's what brought us together a little width Matterport six years ago. We always tried to push to be innovative, adaptive, and customer driven.

That's extra where Matterport fit in for one of our solutions?$

[00:26:36]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Yeah, excellent. Can you tell us a little bit about how you're going about capturing spaces throughout the stages of the building life cycle, really from the onset through to project hand-off and close out with your clients? Can you take us through, what that looks like, how frequently you're standing and how you're going about capturing these scans today?

[00:26:59]
Joel Vande Boom: - A little bit talking and then in one like I said, a lot of things that Nick mentioned before. I think it actually helps with an accountability aspect in a sort of time they see in the street together. We've been fortunate it all just depends on the ideals, the goals of the customers. With one of the insurance congress worked with and almost telling the construction store that Nick mentioned.

We scan where it was before, which is 1940s building. Again, a lot of beautiful actual architectural design and neat features. But seeing that journey from what was to then, the ruffin conditions ahead and inspection. We have history of what was put in place and the occlusal aspect of it.

Those three scans together really shows the power of the space. If we all think in the future, we also have the history, all and as well as we design or move forward, the typical 10 or 15 years of renovation spaces. That was one of the items we utilized. Again, it helped with now a design teams, getting more streamline answers and helping us talk on virtual calls needed onto or trying to walk [inaudible.

[00:28:03] on that Matterport model in different spaces. It also helped the customer CDN product and tracking punch list items as well. Also it actually helped with wanted items a year later on this aspect or this ongoing break customer because now we can say, well, this was in place, this was there. It was [inaudible 00:28:22], so I didn't know.

We don't just go away from it, we still help fix it, but it's a way to help with that accountability aspect, which is a common item that we've talked through quite a bit in this industry. Then I don't know if they've jumped to the other one, but real quickly the other one that I'd like to focus on is this, is build more of a multi-site type of customer retail banking.

We have roughly over right now going 500 spaces captured throughout west and southeast areas for this customer. We've been using that to help we go in the field instead of doing due diligence site visits on piece of paper and pencil or pictures. We capture as this conditions, and then we have overtime meetings with design team and we get that improved solution.

Then we actually use it to help us bid with contractors. Of course, at the end call up. What's nice there's is there's a working and existing buildings and existing retail locations. We can always refer back to it as you have questions in the field or design team depending on what aspect of it. Service it is, and that has helped save quite a bit of time and money for the customer to delivery [inaudible 00:29:35].

Like I said, it was a little prior 30% reduction in time and savings. We're still working on this program today. 4 more years you'll be at your program.

[00:29:46]
Sarah Suwanjindar: - That's incredible. What great documentation that you'll have at the end of that. Just having all these spaces under construction and through the full belt life cycle would be an incredible library to your client to reference as well.

[00:30:00]
Joel Vande Boom: - It's a fun story to tell.

[00:30:02]
Sarah Suwanjindar: - Absolutely. Earlier in the webinar, Clark mentioned the data integrity behind Matterport in the Digital Twins that we provide. All the points that you were touching on just now, in terms of improved collaboration and references throughout the project. Can you take us back to how you're utilizing the measurement mode, the accuracy of the digital twin?

It's not just the visuals, but it's really the data behind the visuals that's helping you move through this decision. Can you talk a little bit more about how you utilize some of those fears? Did you receive any matter packs the floor plans, that matter tags the notes feature that's been recently released. Most importantly, probably the measurement mode.

[00:30:53]
Joel Vande Boom: - With the measurement mode, for example, and actually related also to Nick as well during the time they're all work remotely. What helped is we could have design team, actually, it was almost more efficient meetings that we could potentially have a person to be honest. We had the design team, we have the owner's rep, we had the customer and we had ourself.

At certain times, we had the subcontractor with us, but we were able to walk through that existing condition of that space. That whole aspect is so valuable, like I said, I think there's only 4 million of 4 billion spaces capture, I believe currently today, but that data integrity allows us to measure, let's say, the height of a teller line to see if it's ADA accessible or compatible with an eighth an inch accurate.

Now we can do a lot of those on-site measurements through Matterport instead of being there, talking through a solution, being also test out different circle and radiuses for the ADA accessibility. Again, this is a passion of mine just because of some different family events. This is 80, integrity accessibility improvement for this retail customer.

You can see that the circles are accurate or what we do to design it on that virtual call. Max helped again tremendously. That's the measurement tool, what's needed is the function you can also send a course notes together internally on that model, that location that you're trying to fix and solve together. Then of course, we can also put in the tags that information or even said, sometimes we use the PLM samples or PLM spec hyperlinks in that, so we can keep collaborating together.

That's made extremely efficient. Instead of designing what's one space in a day or so. Sometimes we go through 21, 22 space in a day with everyone involved. Again, yes, it's a long day, but we get a lot done together. Again, just very proud to be part of that.

[00:32:39]
Sarah Suwanjindar: - That's incredible, great to hear. I love your early adoption of the notes functionality in particular and how you're just able to get right into the digital twin and collaborate in real-time. You went in a Google Doc where the references to all of that data there. Great used cases. One thing I also wanted to cover off for our attendees here, is how you're going about capturing spaces.

Clark in the mirror gave an overview of the variety of cameras that are available for capturing. As I understand it at Gilbane, you've primarily standardized on the Pro 2, but that your also you've experimented in utilizing Android for small spaces as well. Can you tell us a little bit about how you go about capturing in your experience with both of the cameras?

[00:33:28]
Joel Vande Boom: Part of this also depends a little bit on the time it's needed and who's available. We do have several, I think now four or five now of the Pro 2 cameras. With them we end up having either our team and it's actually a great experience for our engineering team or superintendents to go and actually be in the space and document it and they will capture that aspect.

Or we have sometimes contractors or vendors help us as well. If there's a lot we have to capture, let's say in a month. One time we had to capture 150 locations in a month and then we had to spread our resources. But it's nice, it's very adaptable and easy to use. We just have a quick training session, work together, scan and then bring it all together in one spot.

The android and the other functions we have used that's mainly when we're trying to get a certain area of a space or a certain specific question captured and then shared. But we haven't used that as well and that's more being on the commercial office operations right now.

[00:34:35]
Sarah Suwanjindar: - Great overview. Let's see. Any thoughts on an end up probably maybe some more questions from the attendees coming on here. But any thoughts in terms of what's next and in terms of your thoughts and how you can even further extend the value of Matterport within your workflow Joel?

[00:34:56]
Joel Vande Boom: - Right now I think what's great and amazing is the last six years we've already seen that evolution continued growth in the interests understanding, how to use this tool for self-worth learning. But the learning capabilities, keeping it easier and easier with this tool. Now instead of creating that beginning aspect of capture.

it's almost trying to connect the existing conditions to the final conditions and then keeping that final conditions live or together throughout the iterations. Now we as an industry, can be more efficient and quicker and analyzing spaces and how to best maximize your cap expense. I always think that as this conditional continue growing through the industry.

I think we'll just keep up being a very interesting evolution and excited to see where it goes.

[00:35:44]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Wonderful. With that, Amir what's up next on our agenda? We are heading into QA from all of our attendees?

[00:35:57]
Amir Frank: Nicholas asked, can you touch on the accuracy of consumer grade through ThreeSixty cameras like the Rico's U1. How much variance can we expect if we translate that to a point Cloud? A couple of things to note there. Nick and Joel, I don't know if you have experienced with ThreeSixty Capture.

I can say Nicholas, that the ThreeSixty cameras do provide within four to eight percent accuracy. This is how it's calculated. It's not going to be as accurate as something like the Pro 2 and certainly not nearly as accurate as the BOK360. The thing is with Matterport because of that, not as accurate as those two devices, you won't be able to get something like a Matter pack. Right now you can get a floor plan, just a schematic floor plan, but not a Matterport.

[00:36:55]
Amir Frank: Because of how fast they are really used for speed. For that aspect to be a benefit in your work, or is the accuracy or in this case not being accurate like the Pro 2 are just not really something that you guys can use.

[00:37:13]
Nick Cameron: I think for us, it is about the speed and it's very easy to overnight our Zeta camera to anywhere. That is just something you can get in someone's hands really quickly. They download the app, it connects to the app and you're ready to go. It's not going to be a big space. It's something that they want to capture. I half jokingly say that any scan that we do in Matterport is more accurate than an intern measure when they're hung over on a Thursday morning every time.

I've been there, I was that intern. Filing cabinets are in the way, do you include the molding on the ground, do you do this, do you do that, was it actually straight when I did it, the tape measure doesn't reach the ceiling. There's a lot of guessing going on there. You usually are only measuring some key spots, which you can do also when you're there, but you should probably do.

But it's all the other ones that you don't measure that then you have access to back in the studio when it's way more accurate than guessing.

[00:38:28]
Amir: Actually, Tyan and Nick there totally agree because even though that alone,

[00:38:36]
Amir: a while ago I used to travel these locations and use tape measures and yes, this is 10 some plus years ago, but I might have had fun like Nick mentioned earlier, and you don't want to get all the spaces or you go a little quicker because you always have to hit so many. This is actually almost a more comfortable tool because even with the newer generations coming up.

And they'll say the stickiness of what's there, this is a neat [inaudible 00:39:00] where you go and see it in person for that, let's say intern that might be scanning, but also you have a great product they can collaborate together. So they learn instead of saying, go to measure this and now you can have a call together and I believe they also helps with the empowering that educating aspect of it as well.

Now, even if there actually is not as much, I think tool just like the iPhone 13 with the lighter aspect, they're just going to keep growing and evolving instead of actually be almost miniscule as it keeps evolving. But I think any capture is better than no capture.

[00:39:30]
Amir Frank: Yeah, certainly. Great. Awesome. I like to see the fact that those tools are also being used and not just focused on the higher end more accurate because it's not just all about measurement accuracy, the collaboration I think speaks volumes. Benjamin asks, if you seven file add-ons, does it mean point cloud would not been decimated anymore as it has done in Matterport point cloud?

Clark, you want to talk about that, the E57 and it's lack of decimation?

[00:40:06]
Clark Morgan: Yes. That's a great question. The E57 is the closest to the direct sensor raw sensor data. You are correct in that it does mean that the point cloud has not been decimated as it is in the MatterPak XYZ. That's the big differentiator. MatterPak XYZ is a low density, easy to use small compact file format whereas the E57 is about 10 times the size, includes 10 times the amount of data for those situations where you need the high density point cloud. Good question.

[00:40:43]
Amir Frank: Sounds good. Let's see here. Nicholas asked, does the point cloud export to RCP contain the real view globes viewable in recap?

[00:40:58]
Amir: Yes. Good question. It does contain the real view globes as each sweep or a scan location in the E57 is translated into recap as the spherical images.

[00:41:15]
Amir: To answer your question, yes, they are all included. That is the benefit of the E57add-on.

[00:41:22]
Amir Frank: I'm not sure about this one. Powell has, I hope I pronounced that correctly, could the Add On work with Revit LT?

[00:41:37]
Clark Morgan: Let me differentiate the BIM file Add On from the Revit Plugin. The Revit Plugin is a Revit specific tool piece of software that is downloaded and put into it. Yes, the plugin will work for as long as Revit LT is compatible with Revit plugins. The Matterport BIM file Add On is compatible. You can open that in LT.

[00:42:11]
Amir Frank: This is really interesting. Oscar asks, can we pull E57 files into Matterport? Create a Matterport model from your E57 file.

[00:42:22]
Clark Morgan: That's a good question and we're hearing that same question from a lot of clients as we are now exporting it, can we import? We are exploring what is next in our point cloud AAC features. Stay tuned.

[00:42:42]
Amir Frank: I think if you have an E57 file that you would like imported, Oscar, reach out to us because I think there's some experimentation is being done if I'm not mistaken.

[00:42:52]
Clark Morgan: Correct.

[00:42:52]
Amir Frank: I'll probably hook you up. Moving on.

[00:42:56]
Sarah Suwanjindar: There's one question about BIM file and I just wanted to allow Nick to share a little bit of experience in part of your division at Perkins&Will has actually piloted the use of Matterport BIM file. Can you share a little bit more about how you found the BIM file and how you might apply the direct order to BIM file in some instances in your workflow there at Perkins&Will.

[00:43:26]
Nick Cameron: Sure. I know we wanted to share some of what that look like, but it's a confidential project unfortunately. What I would say our experience was positive. What was I think interesting to us it was a space that we had scanned and then learned about scan to BIM. We didn't do anything different in terms of going out and trying to capture more spaces or anything like that.

It was just the basic capture of what we would do and then went through the process. It was already on Matterport's Cloud. I think in two days might've been just because of what we were doing on our side, we received the files back. The feedback from the team's been positive. Save them days of work so they're very happy and now as we move into projects that are on the closer rise.

When teams are going out or saying, here is the service, does it make sense? Especially right now, we're all constrained with utilization. Anything that we can offload really saves us so that our folks can focus on more strategic work or being closer to our clients rather than just hits downward in the studio. Been very positive so far.

[00:44:56]
Clark Morgan: That's great. I'd like to pull two parts of your answer out. One is the ability to scale your team and leave them off of the built-in process and let Matterport takeover that portion that you're already used to allowing us to fulfill for your team is great. I think that's a common issue in the industry today. I want to dig a little deeper.

How did BIM file, what part of your design process did it fill and what did we save time on? Was it the as built-in? You use the BIM file as the as-built source of truth or where else may it have been used?

[00:45:40]
Nick Cameron: Yeah, it's really the source of truth. In this situation, it was for corporate commercial project within an existing building.

[00:45:51]
Nick Cameron: The grid laid out, the columns, the size of the columns, the ceiling. We did the mechanical so we knew the larger turns and supplies, the things that we would have to build around that just takes a lot of time for someone to do or for two people to do. The model was generic enough that it slid right into our template and then we were able to call it PWA.

Begin to add our own parameters and families and things like that. Really like a shell, I think is the best way to think about it that we then work within.

[00:46:28]
Amir Frank: I don't remember if it was Nico Drill who mentioned this, but we did get a question from I think it was Jason, how do you transfer the file to your client once you're done with that? It's a pretty easy process. Matterport actually provides that where you can just go and do the model, it transfer, put in the person's email address and that's it. If they don't already have a Matterport account.

It prompts them to create one and transfers right over, that simple. Have you guys found that to be benefit? Customers are happy to get that. I'm sure facility operators are nice to have those pre-drywall scans.

[00:47:16]
Amir: Nick, sorry do you want to [inaudible 00:47:17]? We've been doing the links often and also for, again, one moment customers, they wanted to have that data as they have their new facility remodeled. Then we hand that over to them and it was a very easy transition. We have Matterport account of course within our company here then if they would like to transition or transfer, it's very simple.

You call Matterport, you work on then getting the access to that customer or you just have the link share. A lot of times those links we just keep them live in our platform. But it's been working out very well. Now usually, the more we utilize it the more then the customer eventually would like to have their own account. It just depends on what is best for us and that customer.

[00:48:01]
Nick Cameron: We had a similar experience where we had two clients in the past year created their own Matterport accounts because they want to have access to the models after we're done. Probably a third, which is for entire very large public library system. They want every building that they operate on the Matterport platform.

[00:48:30]
Amir: One thing I wanted to Add On there, please, if that's okay, is it's very interesting too because also just in the MatterPak you just have a simple layout of that space or area and lot of time that want to have or hang on to because as most buildings built '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, all those documents are lost or just even have Matterport scans.

But also just to have that simple 2D aspect, they sometimes just hanging on to that too as well. We weren't sure layouts other aspects so utilizing we start so other way we share information with clients and design teams.

[00:49:08]
Amir Frank: Maybe not always transfer the entire model, but just assets from the model like the ceiling plan, floor plans.

[00:49:14]
Amir: That's right.

[00:49:17]
Amir Frank: Fantastic. There was another one here. Could you speak a little bit more about the notes function and possible ways you can include into Matterport space. You guys take advantage of notes in your collaboration with other team members?

[00:49:34]
Amir: For us it's pretty much some access to that account to that it's an internal chat function. Like I said, before we'd actually utilize Zoom and Teams, but again, usually it's lost or you can file away or record, but here it's within that scan or that as is model we sometimes call it. It's all saved and it's a good way to say, can you please check this measurement?


Can you look at this aspect? It's almost like an accountability list you're going through and aspects on that as is capture. That's what we benefit for that tool. Hope that answers that question.

[00:50:07]
Amir Frank: Yeah. Provides a good checklist of to-dos and you can just mark it off done, gets resolved, and you can always go back to that if any assets were included, images, whatever you can look back at that. Yeah, that's good point.

[00:50:22]
Amir: Before we do PLM sharing samples or yes-no, it's a nice clever tool of solving issues and problems.

[00:50:31]
Amir Frank: Have either of you used notes to also collaborate with other stakeholders, not people in the build process, but your clients themselves?

[00:50:43]
Amir: We have with one of our clients and it was mainly based on mechanical space and just talking through some aspects again, that we've done that once. It went rather well during one of our turnovers. That was just more or less questions on tests and commissioning and handing over and that worked out rather well. They also had a newer team that was coming on board.

As I keeps the industry is the evolution of people retiring and more people coming in. It's a nice educational portal too that can be used how we see it. We've done it once successfully. That went well.

[00:51:17]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Amir, you mentioned external stakeholders. I think we touched on it, Joel, but I just wanted to spotlight the fact that in our earlier conversations that we've had prior to the webinar, you mentioned Matterport's actually been used for inspection to close a project when you need that municipal entity did come through and give you that final stamp of approval.

Can you share a little bit about how, I know it's typically done by in-person walk-through, but when we really need it in these times and who know what's ahead. You've been able to rely on Matterport for that phase as well.

[00:51:58]
Amir: It's nice is you mentioned the aspect of capturing different phases of construction. What was nice is we actually were doing this was during the I guess you can call it the shutdown where everyone was working more remotely. We were doing FaceTime calls to try to help with that inspection aspect. But part of it was we had some areas that are closed up or hard to see and luckily we had those.

Matterport capture tools and those scans during that time. We'd go back and see that was in place. There are actually even able to look at it because we were sharing on a screen make measurements on where it was. I was actually able to allow us to close out and then move on from inspection. Again, that whole accountability aspect and it saves time and money.

Again, the amount of information and data, I believe someone said earlier, really helps us educate and help everyone. Then inspections, we end up having another one in relation to an elevator shaft to where we're able to utilize that more or less confirming looking at where the hardest place to see from afar.

[00:53:04]
Amir Frank: Benjamin asks about digital twins, will we also be able to import RVT or IFC files in Matterport platform for overlaying and drift evaluation? I don't know very much about that, but my guess is that it would really be more of an SDK partner like a platform partner solution, where you would provide a few Matterport scans with something like BOK or Matterport Part 2.

Then you can combine them on the partner's platform and see what drift might have happened over time.

[00:53:42]
Sarah Suwanjindar: That's a great point about the platform partners. We recently recorded an AEC Space Jam that features some of our AEC foreign partners. We have that resource available on our website and maybe we can send it out as a follow-up to this as well.

[00:53:58]
Amir Frank: Yeah. It's absolutely remarkable what the platform partners can do with the data if you give it to them. That pretty much does it for us. Thanks so much for attending for all the great questions. Huge thank you to Nick and Joel who are able to help us out and answer the questions and participate. Of course to Sarah and Clark who provided so much information and help. Take care, everybody. Thanks again. Bye. Bye.

[00:54:29]
Amir: Thank you for the time. Take care.

[00:54:31]
Sarah Suwanjindar: Thank you.