A reality capture tool that offers 3D visualization of a construction site is gaining traction with contractors on large projects, 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 GearVR and Google Cardboard smartphone-based virtual reality platforms. Matterport then entered into a partnership with Leica Geosystems to bring 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 the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC).
“When you create a scan, it automatically imports it into ACC,” says Stephanie Lin, Matterport vice president and general manager. “You can then assign stakeholders to view it in ACC. It all hyperlinks to that exact same spot.”
“The [Matterport reality capture] technology has evolved to the point where the camera can do one rotation in about 18 seconds,” explains Lin. “You can also do indoor and outdoor scanning with the same setup in the field. What this has really allowed us to do is unlock just so many different use cases, especially for the airports, manufacturing plants, large-scale facilities.”
Design firm Corgan has used Matterport on 28 airport projects, says David Huor, Corgan senior associate.“We use it to scan existing conditions. It provides efficiencies to the team; no going back and forth. Exporting point clouds helps us verify that our model is correct. Punch 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-ft-long, 18,000-sq-ft utility tunnel, and has reduced that time by 50% since then using Matterport’s fast capture capability.
Matterport’s 360° scans allow project teams to validate as-builts by overlaying point clouds of their design models with a viewer in Autodesk Construction Cloud. A digital twin can be created from the scans and models in the platform. Matterport’s Pro2 and Pro3 cameras can capture key milestones, create virtual punch lists and help cut down on fatigue and delays from personnel having to manually scan the site.
On one project, walking through the 3D scans answered questions without requiring going back to the site. “At some point there was a questioning of quantities. We walked through the space and confirmed the count without someone having to go back out to the airport,” says Huor.
“No matter how many times you go out to a site to document and figure out where stuff is, there’s always the one picture you don’t get—some corner, a slice missing,” adds John Mares, Corgan associate principal. But with the Matterport reality capture technology, “we have a 360° registered scan of every single area.”
Mares also notes that the technology “is fairly inexpensive and more accessible” than other options. “They’re easy to operate; [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 more than a year, and Brendan Flavin, BIM/VDC director at Wesbuilt Construction in New York, reports similar results.
“Our teams can collaborate, if they see an issue on a scan with some of the drawings then all the drawings are here in the platform. What’s this? Does it need to be removed? What’s the story with the ceiling? The scan data is all centralized within Procore,” Flavin says.
