A reality capture tool that provides 3D visualization of a construction site is gaining traction with large project contractors, helped by key integrations with Procore and Autodesk.
Just a few years ago, Matterport’s Pro2 camera could capture images and send them to the cloud, and could be exported to the smartphone-based virtual reality platforms GearVR and Google Cardboard. Matterport partnered with Leica Geosystems to incorporate 3D point clouds generated by Leica’s BLK laser scanner into Matterport’s 3D models. Now these elaborate reality capture models can be imported with a few clicks into Procore or Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC).
“When you create a scan, it automatically imports it into ACC,” says Stephanie Lin, vice president and general manager of Matterport. “Then you can assign stakeholders to see it in ACC. Everything links to the exact same place.”
“The [Matterport reality capture] The technology has evolved to the point where the camera can do a rotation in about 18 seconds,” explains Lin. “You can also do indoor and outdoor scanning with the same setup in the field. What it’s really allowed us to do is unlock a lot of different use cases, especially for airports, manufacturing plants, large-scale facilities.”
Design firm Corgan has used Matterport on 28 airport projects, says David Huor, senior partner at Corgan. “We use it to scan existing conditions. It brings efficiencies to the team – no back and forth. Exporting point clouds helps us verify that our model is correct. Drill lists can be developed from scans” .
According to Matterport’s website, the technology allowed Corgan to complete 50 scans in about an hour at Los Angeles International Airport of a 575-foot-long, 18,000-square-foot utility tunnel, and has reduced that time by 50% since then using Matterport. fast capture capability.
Matterport’s 360° scans allow project teams to validate as-built by overlaying point clouds of their design models with a viewer in Autodesk Construction Cloud. A digital twin can be created from the platform scans and models. Matterport’s Pro2 and Pro3 cameras can capture key landmarks, create virtual punch lists and help reduce fatigue and delays for staff who must manually scan the site.
In one project, walking through the 3D scans answered questions without the need to return to the site. “At some point there was a questioning of quantities. We walked the space and confirmed the count without anyone having to go back to the airport,” says Huor.
“No matter how many times you go to a place to document and find out where things are, there’s always one picture you don’t get: a corner, a missing piece,” adds John Mares, Corgan’s associate director. But with Matterport reality capture technology, “we have a recorded 360° scan of every area.”
Mares also notes that the technology “is quite cheap and more accessible” than other options. “They are easy to use; [Huor] trained everyone in our office on how to use it in about an hour.”
Matterport’s integration with Procore’s construction management platform has been commercially available for a little over a year, and Brendan Flavin, director of BIM/VDC at Wesbuilt Construction in New York, reports similar results.
“Our teams can collaborate, if they see a problem in a scan with some of the drawings, all the drawings are here on the platform. What is this? Should it be removed? What’s the story with the ceiling? All the data of scanning are centralized within Procore,” says Flavin.
