Helping You Connect the Dots to Succeed Faster
WGAN-TV: Now Playing
Next on WGAN-TV Live at 5
Free WGAN Map
Locations of Matterport Pro3 Camera Service Providers and see the number of Matterport Pro3s and/or BLK360s for each Matterport Pro.
View WGAN Map
Contact Info
Locations of Matterport Pro3 Camera Service Providers and see name, company, website, email and mobile phone for each Matterport Pro.
Join WGAN Sponsor
Get on the Map | A Service of We Get Around Network (not affiliated with Matterport)
One Order  |  One Quote  |  One Contact
Book Multiple GLOBAL Commercial Locations
  • ✔  As-Builts
  • ✔  Construction Progress
  • ✔  Facilities Management
Last 24 Hours: 713 Unique Visitors
9,032 WGAN Members in 148 Countries
Last 30 Days: 38,564 Page Views | 18,538 Unique Visitors | 37 New Members
We Get Around Network Forum
Quick Start | WGAN Forum
PhotogrammetryRicoh Theta Z1ScanningVersusVideo

Video: Matterport Shot with Pro2 versus Matterport Shot with Ricoh Theta Z115446

WGAN Forum
Founder &
WGAN-TV Podcast
Host
Atlanta, Georgia
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
Video: Matterport vs. Matterport! Can you tell the difference? | Video courtesy of @Hopscotch Interactive YouTube Channel | 23 August 2021

Thanks to Emily Olman @Hopscotch for creating this Matterport Pro2 3D Camera versus Ricoh Theta Z1 comparison for creating Matterport tours.

Your thoughts?

Dan

Transcript (Video above)

Emily Olman: Hi guys, it's Emily here from Hopscotch Interactive. Today, I'm going to actually do another test which I think will help illuminate some of the questions that folks have about shooting a space with the Matterport Pro2 and then also shooting that same space with Matterport software but using the Z1.

Using photogrammetry instead of using what the Pro2 uses, which is an infrared sensor. Infrared sensors will capture the space and will basically use it for scanning and creating the dimensioning of this space in the 3D model and photogrammetry will do the same thing.

But the main difference is that what it's going to do is that it's going to basically infer that information rather than scanning it with a scanner, it's going to use the distance between the photographs to create a 3D model. It's funny because I've been scanning Matterport since 2015, but I did not jump on the bandwagon when the Z1 came out and was a camera that could be used in place of the Pro2.

But I've heard that there are some folks out there that are using the Z1 and marketing it as a Matterport scan. I really feel like I need to get to the bottom of this. Is it going to save me a ton of time? Is it going to save you a ton of time if we use the Z1, and do my customers recognize the difference? Do they care? I know that third parties can create floor plans from just any model.

Let's see what happens. I've already scanned this space with the Matterport Pro2, but now I'm going to go and do the same house. This one took me about one hour. It was a lot of different nooks and crannies. It took me a while to scan it even though it's only about 1000 square feet, but I'm going to give it a try. I will check in in a minute and let you know how it went scanning with the Z1.

Here we are and I have got my Matterport camera connected to my app in my iPad. I have the same options, 360 capture and 3D capture. Now I'm scanning. Let's time this. It is three minutes to 4:00. I don't know what that was. Maybe that the beeping was the HDR. It was probably using the camera and taking a multiple bracketed image.

That's going to then be processed. I'm sure that that's what they're doing because they use the SDK. Most likely from, look at that. They're totally in HDR mode. Cool. Let's just see what we can get out of this and see if I can scan it faster than with the Pro2.

I'm going to skip the garage even though, well maybe I shouldn't skip the garage, but I did the garage in the first scan that I did. I'm not doing that here. I can see though, why somebody would say, "Hey. Why don't we just use this Z1 because it only costs $1000 versus having to buy a entire setup and your en Pro2 camera." This is already moving a little bit faster.

I can have also a look here in the top left-hand corner. You can see that I have a half my battery left, which with Matterport and my Pro2, I've never had a battery issue. But see those dots underneath where it says three, that means we're missing some data, so we're going to need to have an adjacent scan to pick that data up.

But so far I've already covered a huge area. This is feeling more like a Z1 plus Zillow tour, which allows me make bigger jumps in between. I can monitor this and I can see how it's going, transferring data and so far the speed is critical. I can see why people would use this instead of a Pro2 and especially if the client cannot tell the difference.

I can see why folks are wanting to use this instead. I've seen on certain forums that alignment can be an issue. You always want to go in a pattern where you are at a 90 degree angle from your previous scan or in a straight line. I'm going to put it pop a scan here just because it needs another one in the kitchen to infill.

But the camera should be pointed with the digital readout pointed towards you, and then the black side or the side without any digital readout pointed forwards. I don't know if that makes a difference for Matterport, but it certainly makes a difference in image orientation for other tours that I create and that I use.

Let's see if we have any issues here going down the steps. I don't think we will. I can tell that there's obviously some in this area, that's not the cleanest. We can add some window trim there. But just generally speaking, that is not the cleanest data that I've ever seen. But I am imagining how this could be.

A very good solution for maybe a freelancer, somebody you don't want to always have hanging onto your $3,000 camera and your $4,000 setup. With the iPad, they could basically do this on Android or with their iPhones. Again, I'm scanning right now with a Z1 camera, Ricoh Theta Z1 camera, and then also the Matterport software.

A lot of folks asked me all the time, should I get a Pro2? Should I get Matterport? I am now even more convinced that the versatility of the Z1 is the way to go. I think in my settings I must have it set so that my 360s are saving in this full HDR mode to my camera.

I can probably go into one of the settings and change that but I can see the numbers ticking down on my camera display telling me that there are some more images or data being used up on the device. As you can see here, not perfect. Maybe I should have put, there's a duplicate of the wall there, so I don't know. I'll put it here.

I don't know which of the scans mess that up. I stopped looking at it because I was looking at my iWatch which is ringing, which is definitely something that I always have on me when I'm out here in the field. But it looks like that door and that wall are a little closer rather than a little further apart. Let's see if we can jump.

Oh no, we can't go where I was going to go. We're going to have to go right here, in this entryway. Now, didn't I say I started scanning five minutes ago? I'm almost halfway done with this house. Goodness gracious. If we are scanning Matterport with a Pro2 versus scanning with this, Good Lord, we are saving serious time.
Now the big question is, do your clients care? Do they want that better fidelity? Do they want to have more accurate floor plans? If so, Matterport is not the only game in town when it comes to floor plans, so we can talk about that in another video.

Look at how that fills it in. See, I'm pretty impressed. Maybe I could use another scan between two and three just to make the navigation a little bit nicer because you can't go from two to four, you have to jump from two to three.

So I can see where this needs a little bit more filling in. But I'm pretty sure that a drafter could already make a floor plan, although it wouldn't be necessarily to scale and we would need to estimate the size. I think that somebody could already use this to generate a basic floor plan and a tour. Now, let's check out how our Z1 performed in a darker area. I'm going to pop open one of these 360s here in a second.

Let's look at this one in the hallway. I had some white balance issues before, but I mean, I'm not seeing any. There's obviously a little cooler color and a warmer color coming because there's a light up here above me in the bathroom or in the hallway, and then in the bathroom, and then cooler light coming from out in the hall, but nothing that is worrisome. Nothing that I would say is not a pass from a client.

I've taken 13 scans, one thing you should know is that when the Z1 gets down to about 30 percent, at least in the Zillow app, I start to get error messages that tell me to be careful, watch out, your Z1 is going to potentially be uploading lower quality images and I think that, that is basically from the low battery scenario.

However, I don't know if Matterport will give me that warning right now. The other thing I don't know, so I'm going to find out here in a second, is how quickly the battery runs down. I think I started at about 56 and I'm at 45, and I've shot 15 shots. Let's say you can do 60 or 70 scans.

I don't know, that may be too many, but maybe 60 scans on a charge because say you have that 30 percent threshold and you also have to retake some images, maybe they don't all turn out perfectly as you're getting started. But that would be something that I would definitely think about. Now, let's see what happens here.

Filled it in awesomely. A Z1, as opposed to a Matterport Pro2, is really a full 360. I mean, there's a little bit of NATE air patching, and that is very minimal though, compared to a Pro2 which has already 30 percent off the top and 30 percent off the bottom.

I don't know if that makes sense to everyone. But what that really means is that because of the shape of the camera, you're missing visual information both above and below. I could probably have lowered my camera here to get these closets because they're shaped a little bit strangely.

They're not square, so I did think that it would be important to get that shape for a floor plan. But this camera is already detecting more data per location, which is a huge advantage, and particularly in smaller spaces so that was this tiny closet. Wow, look at that. Wow, that is really good.

I'm going to move over now into the bathroom and then we've got basically, it looks like just one more bedroom here to scan and then the interior of this house is done. Then we can add 360s outside, which I think I'll just skip because I'm just trying to illustrate and talk about the differences and maybe the advantages of a Z1 versus a Matterport Pro2.

Here, that bathroom. You see this glass here on the shower door? We definitely have lower quality data in the bathroom, but one of the reasons that is happening is there's some glass, there's reflection, and maybe that's not the real reason, but that would seem to me to be a reason that this would not be so awesome.

Because I have a tiny little footprint, you can't see it right now, but I have a tiny little footprint with my Z1. I can actually put my Z1 right next to the shower and hopefully fill in the shower more accurately using the Z1 camera. I'm only at 40 percent, but I don't have how much further to go. I've just got a little bit left in this tour and then I'll be done. I started it not an hour ago or 40 minutes ago, I started it 10 minutes ago.

If you are trying to go quickly and you need to do a ton of Matterport scanning and you don't want to process slowly and you don't want to have it take all day, now, I would have to test this on a larger space, but I think for a smallest space like this, this is completely acceptable.

We've got two more room. I'm just judging that right now based on what it looks like in the app, which is a lower fidelity to begin with, because this is just preprocessed data. I'm going to be taking a look at it once I upload it and I will do a comparison for everybody.

Part of me wants to do a full comparison and do the 360s outside, but this is being done on a whim, so I'm not going to do that. Another thing that is really important is to have a Matterport that you can pick up and move with one hand.

I find that for real estate, even in the nicest of homes, there is sometimes a sloping or there is uneven ground. Let's see what happens here. See, I don't even need to put another one in there, that is totally fine.

I'm going to put this here. Now, I had not done this before, but I will admit that I have been scanning Matterport for over five years, so it's not like I'm starting from zero. I'm anticipate where the data's filling in and where I think it might need a little bit more, but I don't see anything underneath that, that is worrisome.

I think we can finish this tour. After this one, one to two more scans, which means we ripped through this house, we were able to scan it and create a floor plan in a matter of minutes, not a matter of hours. That would've been nice to have that closet scanned one more time. I'll put another one in there.

The other thing I'm not noticing, which is definitely an issue with the Pro2, is if you pick up the camera and you move it a little bit further away from where you just were, you'll get this weird error that says, low overlap, reduce distance between scans.

That error message is not necessarily because you have a low overlap, it's just because you moved a great distance from your previous scan and so you get this little error message, but you shouldn't be too concerned about that. Again, we are at 37 percent, which is basically perfect. Now, this is a 1,000 square foot house that I have more or less scanned. Let's try putting it all the way inside.

When I move it further inside, see what happens, 1,000 square foot house scanned so far in less than 20 minutes. That's including me marking windows. You'll notice that I marked my windows much further than the window. That's totally fine. It couldn't align.

I went to far inside, so that was obviously too much for this little Z1. You can see why. The 27 to where I was in the closet, it needs to have a scan right in front of the closet and then we should be just fine. But having a good Matterport that you can pick up and move around multiple times and have it still be relatively level is super important.

That Matterport needs to be weighted. I have had the painful experience a couple times of having my Matterport not actually work or got knocked over in the wind and that was a huge bummer because it broke the lenses on my Ricoh Thetas.

They weren't the Z1. I've not broken thankfully a Z1, but other versions that were a lot more entry level before they had the Z1. I got those cameras like the V and then the one that came before that look, how that filled that in, my mind is totally blown on this. I had said, let's put one more between four and two next to three, and let's see.

Okay, that's here. Just for navigation needs to be spin it around and this can be my last scan. We're going to talk about this in the rest of the video because I feel I've learned a lot and I see the potential of photogrammetry combined with a LiDAR scanner and I know that that's really what we're dealing with the iGUIDE, and with some of the other media or at some of the other hardware that I'm using to create media, so one step that in the right spot, okay it's okay, it's not the best placement, but it's manageable and I think that's it.

I'm going to process this let's look at that last scan, how did it turn out? Whites look white. It's not totally uneven and not level. There's again, that warm light coming from the hall, but everything else is cool and really balanced and it looks great. I'm going to stop and catch up on the other side.

Hi guys, so it's Emily and I just finished scanning this whole property again using Matterport software and the Ricoh Theta Z1. I used my iPad, I used the exact same Capture app, I made a video on a recording that's going to be stitched in, so you can take a look at that while I'm talking through my experience of using it and the big test is now going to be what does the client think when I process it and when I look at it.

Is it comparable enough to the Matterport Pro2? Again, Z1, saving me so much time, this just took me 20 minutes, maybe 22 or 23 minutes, which is just like what I had in this experience with iGUIDE. Some of you guys started following this channel when I did the iGUIDE video. But now I'm doing the Z1, again, this super versatile camera, and doing that with the Matterport software, so let's see what happens.

I saved 40 minutes at least, and that means I could have done twice as many scans today. I'll let you guys know how it goes, but this is, again, another way to scale, another way to maybe grow your team with freelancers and with photographers, and if your clients don't know the difference between the Z1 and the Pro2 and they just want the Matterport tour.

For sure as a photographer, you want to distinguish between them and let people know, especially if they need more robust floor plans, but we have a very versatile tool here that we can use both for iGuide for Z1s or for Zillow tours and also for Matterport. If you were on a budget and you need to invest in something that can really take you a lot of different places I'm really again, just very much convinced that the Z1 is a great entry level camera and at a $1,000 price point, maybe 1,100 now with the larger storage model, the Z1, V2 or Version 2.

That is a killer camera and a killer combination of software that you can use to get started making virtual tours. More soon, but it was a good test. Here we are in what I'm calling experimental, this is the Z1 tour. Now, as you guys can see, the tour, the 3D came out really well, it looks good.

This is clipped right here. I'm pretty sure that that wall was straight, so that was unexpected, but I didn't really have any issues with this other than I wasn't a big fan of the spots on the floor and other than that, I felt like the 3D model came out looking really good.

Will your clients notice the difference? Well, we're going to have to share this with a couple of them and see what they say, but I mean my guess is that for an empty space, for one like this, that this would be entirely sufficient.

Let's take a look at this one first and then we're going to go to the one I shot with the Pro2. Here is the one that we shot and edited for the client and I mean, there is for sure, and we added in the garage and there's just a 100 percent you can tell that there is better geometry here that is not inferred, this is data that came from the sensor, from the sensor on the Matterport camera and I don't have any of the blotches on the floor.

The color, the fidelity, all that's just a lot better and again, I spent an hour doing this, so I spent 40 more minutes preparing this model, but well, the question is, is it worth it? I will be asking my client, I'll be talking to other folks and seeing what they say. But certainly with a Z1 camera you can probably achieve about 75, 80 percent of what you can achieve, at least in my initial test with this Pro2, so there you go.

Hi guys, it was a great day to test out some more software and hardware in the field, if you have any questions, let me know, put them in the comments, if you found this video informative, please hit the like button, please subscribe. I will continue to post more content and more original content just from my years of experience filming and working in the field as a photographer or real estate photographer, reality capture expert, and also having trained many people on these technologies.

Thanks so much and I will look forward to hearing from you guys and let me know what you think. Thanks.
Post 1 IP   flag post
DigitalTwin private msg quote post Address this user
Helpful post. Thank you. I do see the quality difference and it seems to me that there is a time and place for using the Z1 over Pro2. The question I have is can the Z1 do EXTERIOR shots in DAYLIGHT???
Post 2 IP   flag post
DigitalTwin private msg quote post Address this user
Matterport Outdoor (Sunlight) Capture with Ricoh Theta Z1?
Post 3 IP   flag post
WGAN Forum
Founder &
WGAN-TV Podcast
Host
Atlanta, Georgia
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
Hi All,

More on this WGAN discussion here:

Matterport w/Z1 vs Matterport w/Pro2

Best,

Dan
Post 4 IP   flag post
101436 4 4
Thread locked. No more posts permitted. Return home.