Introducing Matterport

Froelich Engineers has adopted Matterport, a building imaging tool that promises to save time on site visits, improve accuracy of existing conditions measurements, and provide a clear visual tool where design teams can review, share, and collaborate on site issues. 

How does Matterport work?

An operator conducts a room-by-room site walk-through using Matterport’s digital camera. The camera thoroughly scans a building’s interior spaces and creates a model called a “digital twin.” The digital twin allows project design teams, owners, and contractors to take virtual walkthroughs of a building from their desks.

How does Matterport benefit a project?

Matterport provides two immediate advantages at the start of a project: a design team can create a visual as-built model in a single site visit, which can dramatically cut down the need and cost associated with multiple trips to conduct as built documentation and review existing conditions on site with team members. Furthermore, the models are accurate within an inch and offer a photographic record of building details that can be difficult to document or even overlooked during a site visit. 

Matterport’s digital twin is also an interactive landscape that allows design teams to tag areas of the building, create comments and tasks, and assign them to team members – providing a highly accurate and efficient visual tool that embodies the old saying that a “picture is worth a thousand words.”

How is Froelich using Matterport?

Froelich Engineers has deployed Matterport on renovation projects. For our client Innovative Housing, Inc., we have created a digital twin for Copeland Commons, a former hotel in Astoria, Oregon that will be converted into 60 affordable housing units. We were able to scan the unoccupied building in a single day and will be able to cut down on travel time to the site, which is a 2 hour + drive from our Portland office.

We are also using the tool at Innovative Housing’s Clifford Apartments in southeast Portland. That building, which is occupied, is undergoing a seismic upgrade and a room-by-room remodel. We scanned the building’s common and non-residential areas first and have been bringing the tool back to scan apartments when they become vacant. We are using these scans for the progressive improvements to the building but will eventually be able to knit the images together into a comprehensive digital twin that the client can use for future building improvements.