5 Tips to Make your 3D Showcases Picture Perfect

Matterport product designers and engineers have worked tirelessly to create a scanning process that is fast and, above all, simple. With our Matterport Pro 3D camera, anyone can make 3D content in a snap.

We’d like to offer a few simple tips for new and veteran users alike that will help you make stellar scans, every time.

1. Prep Thoroughly

Great scans start with beautifully staged spaces. Be sure to prep the space thoroughly before you start scanning.

• Remove any stray coffee cups, fluff pillows, and prep decor so that everything can remain stationary throughout the scan.

• Make sure everything is where you want it. Our camera likes objects to stay put, and moving them between scans can cause artifacts during processing.

• Decide whether you want the lights on or off throughout the space, and adjust appropriately.

It seems simple, but also make sure your camera and iPad are fully charged before you get on site (yep, we’ve done that before).

2. Plan your Scan Path

We’ve seen many basements with few, wide-set scan locations—the telltale sign of a photographer who’s trying to beat the clock. There’s nothing worse than getting halfway through your scan to find you’re running out of time.

Before you start scanning, we suggest that you plan your path. Walk the entire space. Take note of where you stand and how you move through the space. Following this intuition will provide a natural path for your viewers to explore. Assess how large each space is to ensure that you are dividing your time appropriately between rooms or levels.

3. Follow Camera Best Practices

Make sure that the Matterport Pro 3D camera is tightly secured to the mount, and directly fastened on the tripod. The camera-to-tripod connection should not be wobbly. Do not use a ball tripod head or pan/tilt head with the Matterport camera, as these can shift slightly during scanning.

We recommend that the camera height be adjusted so that the camera lens is roughly 66-68 inches off the ground to give your walk-through tour the most natural feel for the most people.

Also be sure that the camera is level to the eyeball. Note that precise levelness is not required. Our processing algorithms take care of the tough stuff.

4. Don’t Forget the Nooks and Crannies

A few scans are often sufficient to capture all the necessary data of a space, but to provide a truly immersive experience, you want to make sure you scan a variety of paths that let your viewers really get a sense of the space in three dimensions. Include more scan locations in areas of greatest interest, like kitchens.

For real estate, including a scan inside closets and bathrooms is essential. Getting a look around these key spaces can often mean the difference between a call to the realtor and a click to the next listing.

A complete scan also looks much cleaner in Dollhouse and Floorplan views because you have complete information that wraps around any corners. Additionally, as 3D tools continue to improve over time, complete scans may come in handy for future projects like renovations or furnishing. For this reason, it’s always best to get the most complete set of data possible.

Remember, you can always remove unwanted scan locations later in Workshop.

5. Mark Windows and Mirrors as You Go

This is a little tip that pays huge dividends on the quality of your dollhouse, which will greatly improve your viewers' understanding of the overall space.

As you move through a space, mark mirrors and windows on the mini-map as you go using the annotate tool in the Capture App. If you mark a window or mirror as soon as the camera sees it, it will recognize it as a solid surface and produce a cleaner scan with fewer areas to trim when you upload.

It’s hard to understand just how easy creating a 3D model can be until you’ve actually done it, but it quickly becomes second nature. So, with these tips and tricks in mind, get out there and start scanning!

Read On

Watch our new scanning how-to video on Vimeo.

Visit our support site to learn how to improve the quality of your models.

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