Doug_N Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 I am going through money like I had my own printing press! A few days ago I bought a Matterport Pro2 camera. I have yet to use it and ran into to some vexing problems when trying to subscribe to Matterport for the company to process the scan files so that I could actually use the camera. I opted to enroll in the Matterpak Professional package and took the plunge to pay for a year in advance. There are significant savings in doing that. Here is where the adventure begins!!! Matterport did not accept my perfectly good business VISA credit card. Before anyone raises any eyebrows, my card is not at its limit, not in arrears and has way more space than would be required by the cost of the subscription. So, what happens next? The nightmare of Matterport customer support when something goes wrong. Again, this is my point of view, and my opinion about how to run a company, so take that into account as I relate my storey. For some background about who I am, and my experience in managing a company. My background includes the ownership and successful operation of two companies that had multiple employees. I had an excavation company that I ran for about 10 years and sold when the opportunity arose. That company was tiny with only 4 employees. After that I had a steel fabricating company and ran that for another 10 years, with 24 employees. The company had awards and recognition for excellent customer relations and for quality of work from clients like IBM, Telex, GM and Chrysler. We did business in Canada, the US and in Europe. Still not a company as big as Matterport, but there were things that were done well, and the clients recognised that. Matterport is not set up to deal with anyone outside of the US, although their website would lead you to believe otherwise. Matterport does not know how to deal with a credit card problem that is not a problem with the card, nor the issuing bank but with the card processing at their card processing company. Matterport also does not have a great way of dealing with other methods of payment. There is only 3 ways to pay Matterport. 1) Credit card 2) Wire transfer and 3) Cheque. As of now they don't use PayPal. Another problem with customer support is that you only learn the first name of a rep. For example, I had wire transfer instructions sent to me by someone named Rc. It turns out, when I went to the back to get a wire transfer done, there wasn't enough information to actually do the transfer. The bank needed more info. So I called Matterport, while standing at the counter in the bank and asked for more information. After being transferred to two other people I ended up with a rep who, after I explained the situation, sent me an email with the rest of the info, except.... it didn't match the account information that the first person Rc sent. This raised all kinds of alarms with the bank people, and they then refused to do a wire transfer to Matterport, suspecting that this was some kind of scam because the credit card didn't work (they checked the card and said there was no hold on it) and the banking information didn't match. They (the bank people) said that Matterport should sort out the credit card problem and have them call their card processer to find out what the problem was. There is a lot more to the storey, but in the end Matterport suggested that I get a credit card from some other bank and try that. Some other bank? Isn't that implying that the bank is the problem? So what did I do? I had a personal VISA credit card with the same bank. What do you know, Matterport accepted that card. Why? I have no idea. A note about Matterport people when you do get them on the phone. They are amazingly polite, engaging and care about communicating whatever they can. They stay on the phone with you, and if they put you on hold, come back every couple of minutes to let you know that you are not forgotten. Cudos to Matterport customer service reps for that. So the saga will continue as I look forward to the first project using this monster of a camera. By the way it looks very well built! Rugged with well-designed handling features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 Hello Doug, I will be getting my camera in the mail next week and setting up an account. If it is a possibility, maybe we can work something out with me getting a multiple user account and make you the second user? Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 I just checked out the plans. How many spaces would you anticipate needing to have active at any one time? That seems to be the main cost bump item. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 21, 2022 Author Share Posted May 21, 2022 2 hours ago, Gawdzira said: I just checked out the plans. How many spaces would you anticipate needing to have active at any one time? That seems to be the main cost bump item. See PM Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 Well here it is! My first client Matterport scan. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=pCSoG4q7sad 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHCanada2 Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 that is an impressive amount of detail. How much are you charged for this 2 storey? How long did it take? I noticed the furnace room flor plan view does not show furnace, HW etc but the walkthrough does. I do a lot of basement suiting where a second furnace needs to be added. locations of existing furnace, HW etc relative to each other and walls are crucial Do you have to take these measurement by hand ro is there a way to measure these clearances? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 Did you take overall measurements for rooms? Is so, how does this compare to actual? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHCanada2 Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 i tired to get the furnace clearance in 3d ...clearly i need lack some skill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 30, 2022 Author Share Posted May 30, 2022 8 hours ago, jasonn1234 said: that is an impressive amount of detail. How much are you charged for this 2 storey? How long did it take? I noticed the furnace room flor plan view does not show furnace, HW etc but the walkthrough does. I do a lot of basement suiting where a second furnace needs to be added. locations of existing furnace, HW etc relative to each other and walls are crucial Do you have to take these measurement by hand ro is there a way to measure these clearances? This took about 45 minutes. A lot of that time was used to explain what I was doing to the owner. I will be charging about $3,200 for the as built and proposed drawings. I can't see how I could take measurements around the furnace. Tim will tell as I continue to hone my skills. Perhaps I could have closed the door to do a better job of "seeing" the furnace. I took a lot of hand measurements as well, and most of the camera measurements were just about spot on. I was amazed at that. In Ontario, a second furnace is not required if the apartment is an accessory suite. That is, a main dwelling and a smaller apartment in some part of the house. The one proviso is that a smoke detector is installed in the cold air return, with the detector wired into the furnace controls to disable the furnace in an alarm condition to prevent smoke and the products of combustion from circulating between the units. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHCanada2 Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 thanks, Are you charged a per scan fee by matterport? if so, how much? Are you now going to redraw in CA off of the floor plan view in the link? Or how does one convert that to an accurate CA plan without having to "measure" each wall in the link 45 min is pretty darrn good IMHO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 30, 2022 Author Share Posted May 30, 2022 Hi Jason, I am doing the scan for my own purposes, to help me to get the base building info for making design drawings. So it is part of what I am doing as part of the process, and my fee includes the scan. Matterport charges a monthly fee of $79 or an annual fee that is discounted. That gets you a space where you can upload files, and they put the scans together. If you want to download a OBJ file or floor plans, that is an additional $49. There are other fees that may apply if the model is large of really complex. The advantage of the scan is that you can measure things at leisure back at the office, and see features, such as soffits bulkheads etc. that you might miss when taking coarse measurements, you can get window sizes and locations without hand measuring them in site. I suspect that this will save about 50% of the time that I have to spend on site, but this is still early days. I will need more experience to offer an opinion about how worthwhile this is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 You can download an example OBJ file from this link. Scroll to the bottom https://support.matterport.com/s/article/Overview-of-Matterport-E57-File?language=en_US#how-to-download-an-e57-file Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para-CAD Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 Great job, Doug. I use my Matterport as a back up, in case I miss something. Saves me a return trip to measure something or to ID a window or whatever. Mattertags are useful to store textual info or to link to other things. I try to imagine what info would be useful to the H/O or a contractor, that they could access from a computer and not have to go to the site. Noting code violations was a great use of the Matterport. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=zyDT83Qz1rs&brand=0 Best to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 @para-CAD what are you using for capture on site? Ipad / Iphone or android tablet? I have been experimenting with my android devices and I am wondering if my stitching errors are based on the Android system or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 Here is the sample file imported into CA as an OBJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 31, 2022 Author Share Posted May 31, 2022 46 minutes ago, Gawdzira said: @para-CAD what are you using for capture on site? Ipad / Iphone or android tablet? I have been experimenting with my android devices and I am wondering if my stitching errors are based on the Android system or not? Matterport pro 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 Sorry, I meant to ask about not Capture but the device you are using for collecting the data on the App. and taking the camera shots from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted May 31, 2022 Author Share Posted May 31, 2022 18 minutes ago, Gawdzira said: Sorry, I meant to ask about not Capture but the device you are using for collecting the data on the App. and taking the camera shots from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para-CAD Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 23 hours ago, Gawdzira said: @para-CAD what are you using for capture on site? Ipad / Iphone or android tablet? I have been experimenting with my android devices and I am wondering if my stitching errors are based on the Android system or not? 2018 iPad Pro. (the overly big one) I think the iPad mini would be a great size. The one I have is a bit large and the size isn't necessary to mask off the windows or mirrors. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 Under construction and I wanted to do a test before I clean up for the pre insulation photo tour. It certainly delivers. I spent about 1 hour setting up around 40 camera shot locations. I only had one failure warning when I did not move sequentially enough for it to stitch together. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Xp3zLcxA47h 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para-CAD Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 I love it! I offer this to builders who might find it valuable to have access to a Matterport scan BEFORE everything is covered up, at least for the life of any warranty they provide.......just in case. Great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHCanada2 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 i still need some skill in measurement, the software does not look to see the post, had to measure along the beam. tried it from the backside. And this is interesting but then moved to the left and got better results but numbers still do not make sense, looks like 2'10 or maybe 2'11, but to the corner shows 2'11. difference of 1"/0" but looks like there are 2 2x6s there so should be 3" difference. Can people specify door widths using this software? maybe I just need some training One thing for sure, this would be invaluable for future renos, showing all the wiring, posts, plumbing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChefCadhla Posted June 18, 2022 Share Posted June 18, 2022 I have been using Matterport with my CA for almost a year now. I did not like the way the OBJ imported so I do not get the Matterpak. I use the Blueprint function and for $14.99 they send me a PDF, a PNG, and 2 SVGs. I use Adobe Illustrator to convert the SVG to DXF, and then I draw the walls on top of that. I do wish that CA would provide a DXF in the Blueprint pack as that would save me a step. I just did this scan a couple of days ago. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=d2Cts4ozXcu Once the scan had been processed into the 3d walk through, I submitted the request for the 2d blueprint. I received it this morning, converted the SVG into a DXF with the appropriate scale, and got the walls drawn in in about an hour. The camera and system have increased the accuracy and decreased the amount of time it takes for me to produce an as-built plan. David Wolfe Canis Lupus Services, LLC 1_longboat-key-fl-34228_0.svg 1_longboat-key-fl-34228_0.dxf 0_longboat-key-fl-34228_1.pdf 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gawdzira Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 @ChefCadhla How is the accuracy level for the pdf measurements? I will be doing a check on my end soon but just wanted to see how close you were finding the data to actual. Thanks Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHCanada2 Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 interesting what they do, it looks like they adjust wall widths to compensate for the inaccuracies of stitching the rooms together. I suppose you got to put it somewhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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