Matterport, a leader in professional 3D scanners for AEC, announced an app that allows direct export to Autodesk Construction Cloud. This app makes it much easier for users of Autodesk Build to acquire 3D scans produced by Matterport devices.
Autodesk Build, which manages all construction documents, including requests for information (RFIs), drawings, PDFs, BIM models, and so on, is part of Autodesk Construction Cloud, a comprehensive cloud-based construction management platform that also includes Takeoff (for creating estimates from BIM models), BIM Collaborate (for connecting various stakeholders on a building project) and Docs (for cloud-based document hosting and management).
The Matterport app is available in the Autodesk App Store. The download is free, but an active Matterport Business subscription plan ($309/month) is required to use it. Pricing for Autodesk Construction Cloud is a bit more complicated as you have to subscribe to each of the products in the platform (Build, Takeoff…) individually. Build is priced from $495/year to $1,675/year, depending on the number of sheets.
Death by RFI
Why is it important to provide a direct connection between a 3D scanner and a construction management platform? The sheer volume of RFIs generated during a construction project may be reason enough.
Matterport cites a Navigant Construction Forum survey, which revealed that a typical big construction project may generate 50 RFIs a week, or 800 total RFIs by the time the project is finished. Survey respondents said they spend 8 hours on each RFI—a total of 6,400 hours of paperwork! In their haste to dispense with them all, could they not introduce errors and have omissions that will by themselves create rework and even more paperwork? In fact, an incredible 48 percent of all the paperwork on a project is for rework, according to Construction Disconnected by Thomas et al., a report commissioned by Autodesk in 2018.
Why not answer an RFI with a 3D scan that takes minutes, is dead accurate, and omits no measurements, asks Matterport.
With the Matterport app, constructors can put a pin at a place of concern in the 3D scan for any stakeholder to view in a full-color, 3D view—as if they were there.
“This integration builds on the digital transformation Autodesk has been leading in the construction industry for decades,” said Jay Remley, chief revenue officer at Matterport.
The Matterport app delivers a 3D scan model to Autodesk Construction Cloud as a native Revit file. There is no need to separately import point clouds or triangulated meshes, an intermediate step that was previously required.
With the growing use of 3D scanners, more and more of a building, a structure and an infrastructure is being scanned as it is being built and as-built (upon completion). A project being built can be scanned in whole to keep all stakeholders appraised of its progress, a growing digital twin and its model, which is updated daily and visible anywhere—or in part, as happens with RFIs. For example, “show me how we can avoid this clash.”
Scanning Enters the Mainstream
More and more RFIs are being responded to with scans. Once a million-dollar endeavor, scanning was reserved for the largest projects, but in the last few years, it has entered the mainstream. The sophisticated LiDAR scanners that once required considerable training in their use have been replaced with lower-cost, lighter, easy-to-use scanners. Field personnel who might once have recorded a project with photos, videos and sketches, 2D drawings and 3D models are now equally—if not more likely—to perform a 3D scan.
Several apps, including one by Matterport, let you scan with nothing more than a smartphone. And if the smartphone is an iPhone, the apps will use Apple’s built-in LiDAR. What one gives up in detail (it’s only accurate to the inch) is compensated for by their near-universal access.
Unlike an as-built laboriously created one measurement at a time scan, a 3D scan effectively takes millions of measurements all at once, with its laser scanning up, down and sideways, generating a dense point cloud. Software takes over from there to connect the points, making mesh surfaces, a coarse 3D model, which is faceted rather than smooth. But seen from a distance, it’s good enough for most. Only a perfectionist—or a CAD modeler—would complain.
The mesh lacks color, some might say. LiDAR scanning systems compensate for this by overlaying colored pixels from a built-in digital camera. Voilà! The mesh model with color overlaid looks utterly realistic.
Matterport has an inexpensive ($79) motorized swivel mount that creates a stunning 3D view with an iPhone that can be immediately posted to sell real estate or rent your cottage. Somehow, Matterport avoids the fragmented image common to other smartphone apps. The Matterport app lets landlords publish their 3D walk-throughs directly to VRBO and HomeAway.
About Matterport
Matt Bell founded Matterport in the San Francisco area (and gave the company his name) in 2011. On the strength of its multiple patents and leadership, the company has grown fast after nine rounds of financing totaling $114 million from a total of 27 investors, making it one of the brightest tech start-up stars in the AEC industry.
Matterport ties into other formats (Google Earth, for example), but the relationship between Matterport and Autodesk seems to be getting more serious. The company previously created a plug-in for Revit and Matterport BIM files that allows Autodesk users to transform Matterport spaces into BIM (.rvt) and CAD (.dwg) files.