From the course: Matterport 3D Scanning and Visualization

Scanning a space - Matterport Tutorial

From the course: Matterport 3D Scanning and Visualization

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Scanning a space

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- [Instructor] You've done it. You've landed your first Matterport scanning project. There's some instructive things to keep in mind before you start capturing a space. This initial setup phase is important to ensuring a successful project. When you first start a Matterport project, you want to to be sure to have the proper access to all the rooms that will need to be scanned. That may mean you need keys of some sort or a code of entry. In the setup phase, ensure that all the lights are turned on. If there's bright sunlight coming into the space and flooding on the ground elsewhere, it's often better to draw the blinds. This is because the infrared laser on the Matterport camera produces poor or zero data when in direct sunlight. Further, sunlight that is cascaded on floors and furniture often produces zero laser returns resulting in large black holes on your 3D model data or mesh as it's called in the 3D modeling industry. This really can reduce the visual quality of your final Matterport model. You'll also want to open up all the doors of the rooms you'll be scanning. This is because the Matterport software needs to first see the same geometry state from different scan positions to ensure it can stitch the scans together. And second, if you scan with the door closed then open, the virtual tour may block off access to that room because a saw geometric blockage. So what that would look like is someone would be virtually walking through your space online and see an open door. But the tour behaves as if they hit an invisible wall and cannot enter the room or walk through that room. If you are in a public space with people walking about, you may want to hold off on or pause the 3D scan till they're out of the field of view. This will ensure that first you don't have people in your imagery that may not want to be there. And second, that there is a minimal amount of geometric changes to the space, giving the Matterport Capture app a better chance of stitching the scans together. Once your space is set up in these ways, you're ready to take your first scan. At this point, you can turn on the Matterport camera by pressing the top button, allowing it to warm up. You can then open up your iPad, navigate to your general settings app, turn on your wifi, and connect to the Matterport camera that shows up on the list. Once connected, the yellow wifi icon on the back of the Matterport camera will stop flashing and you're ready to connect the Capture app to the Matterport camera. Opening the Matterport Capture app, you'll see the following items. You should first log into your Matterport account to get yourself ready to upload your completed project. Then choose add new job. If you're connected to the Matterport camera, the capture 3D scan button will be illuminated and active. Then you can simply press this button and stand either behind the scanner, as it revolves around, or go hide out of the sight of the camera entirely. With a 50 foot Wi-Fi range in most spaces, depending on what the walls are made of, you could even hide in another room and watch the progress on your app with the word displayed scanning. The Capture app will then give you a message on the capture button when you are okay to move camera. You can now move five to eight feet away to another position to capture another scan. Some things to keep in mind when scanning. Number one, scan to capture areas that would overlap with the previous scan by around 30 to 50% on the low end. The Capture app needs your help to make the stitching process happen. Two, keep in mind that you want to scan all the way around objects whenever possible and watch the screen of the Capture app to ensure you do not have any black holes in the data. Three, when scanning doorways you'll want to scan first on the outside, then on the inside of the doorframe. Don't straddle the doorframe. Four, scanning stairs as much the same process as scanning a flat area. Except you'll need to adjust your tripod to ensure the scanner is relatively level. Five, mirrors and windows can be edited in the Capture app on fly. The exception to windows is those that are inside the space. These windowed rooms do not need to be edited with the mark features window tool in the Capture app. If there are several windows right next to each other on a wall you can just draw the Mark features window line across the entire wall, leaving a little overhang on each side to ensure you have marked the entirety of the windows. Six, solid color walls or areas that have very little geometry can be a challenge. I recommend printing out the new April Tags that you can download and print from the Matterport support site. These markers when enabled on your Capture app settings, known as the assisted alignment tool, can help the capture software to stitch the scans together. You want to place these at least five to eight feet apart on walls. And even the floor in a somewhat random way. It's best not to put them all in a single line as this variation in elevation and spacing actually helps with the stitching process.

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