Xtour 3D Transformed Construction Quality Assurance with Matterport Digital Twins

Overview

Xtour 3D is an Australian reality capture company founded by co-directors Luke Maffei and Mark Ristevski, who together bring more than 20 years of commercial construction experience. The idea for Xtour 3D began when Mark, while in California, came across someone using Matterport to document a home before the plaster walls went up — a “pre-plaster check.” He brought the idea back to Melbourne, and he and Luke built this idea into a dedicated quality assurance service for builders.

What started as a single-market offering in Melbourne has grown into a national capture network with people in every state across Australia. Xtour 3D now works across the full construction lifecycle — from pre-construction site assessments and dilapidation surveys through pre-pour and pre-plaster checks to project completion — giving builders, architects, and increasingly homeowners a single, shared record of what's actually in the building.

A Matterport tour is a really efficient and powerful tool during the construction process, as opposed to just retrospective reviews. It's not just for when something goes wrong and it needs to be checked; we encourage its use actively throughout the process."

— Luke Maffei, Co-Director, Xtour 3D

The Challenge

Documenting fast-moving construction sites without losing critical information Before adopting Matterport, Xtour 3D’s clients relied on the traditional approach to construction quality assurance: someone walking the site with a phone or camera, photographing whatever seemed important and hoping it would be enough later. That approach created several recurring problems:

• Fragmented, easy-to-lose records — photos were scattered across devices and folders, and if the person who took them was away sick, the information was effectively unavailable.

• Time-critical milestones with no second chance — once concrete is poured or plaster goes up, you can't go back and check what's underneath without significant cost and time delays.

• Slow, repetitive back-and-forth on questions — builders raising a request for information with an architect would take a photo, get asked “what's happening over there,” take another photo, and repeat the cycle.

• Costly travel to restricted or remote sites — reviewing a site in person often meant driving multiple staff hours each way or coordinating access to areas with safety or compliance restrictions.

• A largely unfamiliar technology category — when Xtour 3D started, “digital twin” wasn't a term the construction industry recognised, and convincing builders to try a new workflow over the phone was difficult. But once they had the opportunity to start using Matterport digital twins – they hardly ever turned back to traditional site captured process.

The Solution

A simple capture workflow that builders and their trades could adopt immediately Xtour 3D enhances the qualitative effort for builders as they take on building projects. Matterport became the core of that offering because it was straightforward for both Xtour 3D's capture teams and their clients and subcontractors:

• Intuitive, low-training platform — Matterport virtual site records can be easily navigated, with instant measurement tools available as a ‘three-click process’, making it accessible even to clients less comfortable with new technology.

• One shared, model is the single source of truth — instead of a folder of disconnected photos, every stakeholder works from the same spatial record, accessible any time.

• Share and measure functions built for the trades — Xtour 3D gives subcontractors of builders free access to models so a carpenter can measure what's behind a wall before cutting into it, or a builder can send an architect a direct link of a virtual space instead of a photo.

• Point cloud and BIM integration — for renovation, extension, and commercial fit-out projects, Xtour 3D export Matterport point cloud data directly into Revit, pairing it with the virtual tour so architects can design against an accurate as-built record.

Key Use Cases

1. Pre-Plaster Quality Assurance Xtour 3D's original and still-largest use case. Capturing a space just before plaster goes up records the position of everything behind the wall — electrical, plumbing, HVAC - so that all project stakeholders including building owners or operators, have visibility on completed works at any point in time. 2. Dilapidation and Pre-Construction Surveys

Ahead of works like basement excavation, Xtour 3D uses Matterport to capture the existing condition of neighbouring properties, roadways, and authority assets to prepare a Dilapidation report — a record required under Australian building codes and shared with adjacent asset owners as evidence of the pre-construction conditions. This digital twin is also an excellent reference for considerations of things such as access, safety and site constraints by the project team. 3. Measurement and RFI Resolution The measure tool lets trades confirm exact dimensions on site without cutting open walls, while the share function replaces repeated back-and-forth photos with a single link an architect or engineer can navigate themselves to answer a request for information with a greater understanding of the broader site conditions. 4. Point Cloud Export and Design Integration For renovations, extensions, and commercial fit-outs, Xtour 3D leverages point cloud data imported into Revit so architects and builders can design directly against existing conditions, pairing the model with the virtual tour for full spatial context. 5. Remote Access to Restricted or Distant Sites Where a site has restricted access or compliance requirements, or is simply hours away, teams review the model together in a boardroom instead of travelling. On one project, this replaced a site visit for five staff, saving an estimated 20 hours of combined travel time. 6. Tender and Bid Differentiation Builders increasingly include Xtour 3Ds Matterport collateral in tender submissions, using the models to demonstrate their quality assurance process and technology adoption — a signal of transparency that helps build trust with prospective clients before a contract is even awarded. The Impact From a reactive record to an everyday construction tool Luke shared that their clients are increasingly using and reliant on Matterport --- from occasional, reactive documentation to a model they check constantly throughout the build. “It’s a great tool for any tradesperson arriving on site for the first time. They open the model before preparing to complete any work on-site. This includes reviewing measurements and existing conditions before drilling or cutting.” Luke added.

• The single remote review session of a project site mentioned above saved an estimated 30 hours of combined staff time - several thousand dollars that would otherwise have gone to a return trip to a site two hours away.

• A single smaller residential project reported an estimated saving of over $10,000 and 2 weeks of delay time due to being able to negate a large reworks process. This also eliminated significant administration costs the builder that they would not have been able to recoup.

• Processes – such as site measures for consultants, that once took days shrink to about half a day once Matterport is built into the workflow with the benefit of an excellent visual reference

• Replacing scattered phone photography with one shared model removed the risk of documentation being incomplete, misfiled, or unavailable when the person who captured it was unreachable.

• Builders report that sharing Matterport data with clients and stakeholders builds confidence, trust and transparency, since the record is factual, timestamped and trusted

For Xtour 3D, most of the measurable savings are in hours of effort reduced, costs of reworks and trips avoided. This qualitative shift has been consistent across clients: less time chasing information, fewer disputes over site conditions, and more confidence that everyone is working from the same facts.

Looking Ahead

Expanding beyond builders into the wider AEC ecosystem Xtour 3D's use of Matterport has broadened alongside its client base. What began as a service almost exclusively for builders has expanded to architects and services engineers, and increasingly to homeowners who want their own record for future renovations. Xtour 3D has also moved into adjacent offerings such as scan-to-BIM and point cloud services, and uses Matterport for display homes, showrooms, and presentation work, including projects supporting green roof design.

• Continue growing the capture network so Xtour 3D can serve builders in every Australian state.

• Deepen point cloud and Revit-based workflows for architects and engineers designing around existing conditions.

• Extend Matterport's role from a pre-construction and quality assurance tool into presentation, marketing, and tender collateral for clients.

Conclusion

Having one digital twin — that one source of truth, all collated in one place, that you can share with anybody, that's always available — provides real confidence for the builder and for every other stakeholder in the conversation."

— Luke Maffei, Co-Director, XTour

For Xtour 3D, Matterport turned construction quality assurance from a fragmented, after-the-fact exercise into a live, shared record that builders, trades, architects, and clients all trust. By making reality capture simple enough for anyone on site to use, Xtour 3D has built a business that helps its construction clients move faster, resolve issues sooner, and demonstrate the quality of their work with confidence.