What is our primary use case?
My main use case for
Matterport is with real estate agencies on the Andalusian coast, primarily to create virtual tours for remote sales or at least remote lead generation for foreign clients.
In a recent real estate transaction, as well as in others, luxury real estate agencies normally ask for a photographic report and drone work, because these houses usually have very interesting exteriors. They also ask for a virtual tour with Matterport, which is used basically for virtual tours, although sometimes it is used later to download floor plans.
What is most valuable?
Matterport's valuable features are basically the ability to know where it is, the ability to do a very large stitch, and also the possibility of creating more plans and multiple levels of a multilevel building.
Matterport has been a technology that has allowed me to offer one more service and even sometimes to attract clients who directly asked for Matterport service, with the brand being very well known, even among people who are not in the audiovisual sector. It has also allowed me to work with large luxury property sales platforms that directly ask for a Matterport link to embed on their website. Matterport is basically an international standard that allows, in and of itself, to make contact with customers, create new customers and retain them, and offer cutting-edge technology.
Work efficiency is key with Matterport because the report done with Matterport is done at the same time as the photos and drone work, since the home staging is done only once for everything. Then, I notice that I am delivering a product that I charge the same as I charged for the photographic report, but in reality, Matterport does all the work autonomously and there is no more field work than those few minutes needed to do the field captures. In terms of lead generation, I cannot give a disaggregated metric, but aggregated with the professional images plus the virtual tour, we are basically talking about, according to what my clients tell me, tripling visits.
What needs improvement?
I think Matterport could be improved with better integration with
CAD systems. The quality of the output files of Matterport could have higher quality and better integration with platforms used by design professionals, such as architects and engineers, so that they can use it in a very reliable way. For example, they could use it to do as-built surveys, to do building pathology analysis, and to detect movements. This, of course, requires integration and communication between Matterport and other companies in the sector.
I think that the automatic removal of the camera's reflections would be an addition that could be implemented directly in an automatic way or the possibility of manual corrections.
For how long have I used the solution?
In my current field, I have been working for basically 30 years, with artificial intelligence for the last approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I consider Matterport to be absolutely stable; it has never given me any problem.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not had any relevant experience regarding the scalability of Matterport because of the size of my business, but I can say that the device is shareable. The equipment can be rented out to trusted people, it can be used by several people and it can be used with several platforms. This can indeed be a way to scale, but it has not been the core of my business.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Matterport's customer support has been generally positive, as they respond quickly and know the product perfectly, providing very quick solutions. I remember that at the beginning I had doubts when I had to configure, but normally it has not been necessary. However, I do remember that at the beginning they were very efficient.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used GigaPan before Matterport. GigaPan is a tool that lets you take high-resolution photos, that is, photos made by stitching different frames together. Obviously, GigaPan is called that because they sell the idea that you can, for example, take a telephoto lens and shoot a landscape with so many small telephoto images and then stitch them to create an image of virtually infinite resolution.
The use case that was used indoors or in architecture was more the spherical photography, that is, 360 x 180, and the work is very manual, involving several programs, specifically KRpano and a stitching program, which also has its cost. But above all, it is manual work and subject to stitching errors when the photos are not taken properly. If the photos are not taken properly, many times it is not possible to retake them. Meanwhile, with Matterport, I feel reassured because the device and the online ecosystem ensure that everything goes well from the field capture to the final product.
What was our ROI?
I notice a return on investment using Matterport, with time saving being significant. When I worked with GigaPan, I had to do the image stitching and professionals, when they stitch images that were not taken by them and if there are parallax problems, problems always arise. Thus, you always consider the option of doing it yourself or at least having the person who does the capture also do the stitching. The metric for Matterport is obviously a time saving, because the stitching is done automatically.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The recurring costs for Matterport are reasonable, with the costs of acquiring the device, especially the latest one, the Matterport Pro2, being more than €5,000. Obviously, one always hopes that the device can become cheaper. However, the monthly expenses are amortized with client payments.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Matterport, I actually considered using Matterport platform with a Ricoh camera, the Theta, and other types of cameras, but in the end, since I came from GigaPan, which at least had high quality, I did not want to lower the quality. I decided to buy the device and pay for the platform to have everything done with high-quality captures from the beginning.
What other advice do I have?
I would mainly advise other professionals to buy the latest equipment available and to wait maybe until offers come out. Sometimes offers with discounts appear, and you can even find something second-hand, but always go for the latest device because Matterport is a product that will last many years, so it is worth making an investment with all the functions up to date.
I think it should also be said that the design of Matterport has become very nice lately, as they have improved the quality of the lenses and also the size, with increased quality and reduced size of the equipment, which is always appreciated in field work. I would rate this product nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other