“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
- Are you thinking about buying a Matterport Pro3 Camera?
- How did a Matterport Service Provider end up buying six Matterport Pro3 Cameras with plans to buy four more? Stay tuned.
Hi all, I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the www.WeGetAroundNetworkForum.com Today is Thursday, September 21st, 2023, and you’re watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.
We have an awesome show for you today: “Marcel Gyswyt - My journey as a Matterport Pro3 Service Provider.”
Marcel is the owner of [Www.GForceSI.com] / [www.SpacesPlacesPro.com] Marcel, thanks for sharing your Matterport Pro3 Service Provider journey with us.
- You bet. Nice to be with you.
- Marcel, you have two businesses. Let’s start with G-Force. Tell us about G-Force today - even before we talk about how you discovered Matterport and how you got going - tell us about G-Force.
- Okay. G-Force is a Field Service Provider, and that’s a very general kind of description, but it fits. We primarily are doing surveys for our clients and the clients that we generally represent have multiple locations, some hundreds, some thousands of locations, and we do the stuff in the field that is important to them, but not their core kind of thing.
So if they’re doing a remodel or a change over a region or area and they need surveys done, we provide the surveys.
Sometimes it includes Matterport, many times it includes Matterport, other times it’s straight photography and filling out a checklist.
It depends on the scope of work. But what I have is kind of a trusted crew that I can put out in the field and we can cover dozens, hundreds, even thousands of locations in a fairly brief period of time, whatever the scope of work is.
- And the kinds of clients that you have, I noticed on your website, Costco, Walmart, big clients.
“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
Marcel Gyswyt Principal Owner | Owner G-Force | Spaces & Places www.GForceSI.com | www.SpacesPlacesPro.com- They can be big box, they can be retailers. Actually, our primary group of clients are banks. We’ve done lots of work for Bank of America, Citizens, Charter One, Santander, Wells Fargo. So that’s the type of client; that’s the type of end-client that we work with.
- And the kinds of Matterport related services for those kinds of clients?
- Yes, generally we’re working through an agency of record. So when we do stuff, for example, with Bank of America, I’m not sending the bill to them. I’m working for an agency that’s providing services.
Sometimes it’s a property management group, so it might be JLL or CBRE that has an initiative and they need a hundred branches surveyed. So they’ll me and my group and we’ll put together the schedule and fly through those branches.
- So the survey, is that a survey that begins with a Matterport camera?
- It can, so it’s really important to understand what the scope is. What are they trying to accomplish? Is it changing out merchandising, is it doing remodels, flooring, paint, whatever.
That kind of dictates how we approach the project. And because Matterport captures pretty much everything, it tends to be the tool that we use, but a lot of times the clients also want us to use the backend to count certain things, whether it’s furniture or signs or measure windows, if they’re going to be getting vinyl or graphics [signage] or things of that nature.
So Matterport, a lot of times is used, but we also provide the service on the backend to give them the spreadsheets and so forth, or the database to be able to make their orders or whatever.
- So I think so far I’ve heard three use cases of Matterport. First is perhaps a renovation of a space or a retrofit of a space. Second is to be able to do calculations.
- Inventory.
- How would inventory relate back to Matterport?
- Well, if you’re going into a retail space, all of them are different. You might have to measure all of the windows facing the public and supply the measurements because they’re getting a certain vinyl application. And that’s.
- A sign, signage.
- Right, right So that’s just an example. If in banks it might be the number of tellers, the teller height, do they have a place for handicapped people, all of that kind of stuff. So it just depends on the scope and what they’re trying to accomplish.
- Do any of the end-clients use it for marketing purposes? Or, is it really more about counting things and understanding the space?
- I think most of the clients that I work for use it for functional, kind of work, not necessarily for marketing. They tie the data to it and the features, whether it’s tags or notes or whatever it is, they use it, in their workflow, if you will.
- And are there other use cases? I noticed on your [www.GForceSI.com]: space and safety planning; quality control is; are those Matterport use cases?
- Absolutely, I really kind of got into Matterport when COVID started, and it was, I think, a match made in heaven.
If you remember all of the six foot spacing of the dots where you had to stand in line at queues and all of that kind of stuff, without Matterport, that would’ve taken a space planner, many trips and all kinds of time.
And since they had the files, they were able to use it and identify in a floor plan exactly where all those dots had to be. So yeah, space planning, quality control, all of that, it all plays in.
- What would be an example of quality control meets Matterport?
- Okay. If you have a program that’s rolled out in your network, let’s say an advertising or point of sale kind of program, and it consists of 15 or 20 different pieces.
Okay, if you have a Matterport snapshot, after that’s done, all of that can be inspected. You can see if it was applied correctly in the right spots, all of that kind of stuff. So that would be an example.
- Would that mean that G-Force is shooting the space at least twice: one is the before for all the planning purposes and then after the installation comes out and scanning again?
- Many times, many times we shoot spaces in stages depending on the workflow again. And yeah, there’s certainly, I can tell you in some banks, we’ve been to the same bank three, four or five times over the course of a few years because things change.
- And the kind of Matterport cameras that you’re using today?
- I started with the Pro2s and nice heavy duty iPads, as much memory as you can get and so forth.
And I am in the process of transitioning all of the cameras to Pro3s. I’ve got six [Matterport Pro3 Cameras] and four of my teams still have Matterport Pro2 Cameras, but over the next couple months, everyone’s going to be using Pro3s.
- So if I heard you correctly, you have six Matterport Pro3 Cameras, four Matterport Pro2 Cameras in the months ahead, the Matterport Pro2 Cameras will be replaced with Matterport Pro3 Cameras. So you’ll have a total of 10 Matterport Pro3 Cameras.
- That’s right, that’s right.
- Why the need to switch to Matterport Pro3 Cameras from Matterport Pro2 Cameras in the work that you’re doing?
- It mostly has to do with exterior kind of work. I’m doing or plan on doing a project for Exxon. And they have, it’s a franchise that has 65 locations in Houston, and they want the entire lot mapped.
So instead of starting on the inside like you normally would with a Pro2 and doing 360s around the outside, we’re starting on the outside perimeter and circling in and literally capturing the entire lot.
And what that allows them to do is literally be able to see their entire space, whether it’s exterior signs, measuring exits, entrances, landscaping, doors, anything they can, they can work with the exterior as well as the interior. And they’ll have their entire network of those 65 stores, documented, if you will.
- When you say stores, I’m thinking of gas stations.
- Yeah, they’re C-stores.
- C.
- Gas stations, convenience combination, convenience gas stations. So they’re usually about 35,000, 50,000 square feet. A lot of them have a little car wash, 15 pumps and a C-store, a convenience store. So we’re talking about capturing that entire lot.
- Does the Matterport Pro3 Camera enable you to get that kind of business? Or you were previously delivering Matterport Pro2 Camera models with 360 scans outdoors?
- Yeah, that’s what we did. We provided those 360 scans and placed them on the mini-map and so forth. But the problem is it’s not an integrated file.
“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
Marcel Gyswyt Principal Owner | Owner G-Force | Spaces & Placeswww.GForceSI.com | www.SpacesPlacesPro.com
So the Pro3 integrates that all into one file. You can still pull out your floor plans and all of that kind of stuff, it still creates that. But to be able to get the entire plot of land and surroundings and so forth, just adds a lot more value.
- Were you able to charge clients more because you were now able to do scans outdoors versus the 360 Views outdoors?
- You could, you could certainly adjust your price.
- I’m trying to ask you, in terms of that, that’s quite an investment, if you’re going to be up to 10 Matterport Pro3s at $6,000 a pop. At $60,000 are you able to recoup that either because you’re able to charge existing clients more or to get new business that you wouldn’t have been able to get before?
- I would say it’s because I am able to get new business. I always try to keep up with the latest and greatest.
One of the things that I’m really proud of is our pricing though. I think it would be surprising to a lot of companies how cost effective G-Force is.
And the reason for that is -- I have to give you a little history. I was a CFO and a Controller in my previous work life and so forth, so I know how to run a business. And this business, G-Force, is literally run as a virtual business.
So I don’t have rent. I don’t have secretaries and staff, and everything that I have is in my equipment and my people in the field. And with that being said, I don’t have a lot of overhead or anything like that.
And because I try to work at scale, I’m not really interested in one-offs or the real estate residential real estate market. I work with larger clients, I do it at scale, so my pricing can’t be beat.
- So in terms of the reasons why getting a Pro3, so the, I think I’ve heard two reasons so far. One is outdoor, outdoor, outdoor, in order to be able to do scanning outdoors with the Matterport Pro3 Camera really was not possible with the Matterport Pro2 Camera.
Second was having Pro3s enables you to get new business. Were there other motivations when you said, “oh, we need to update our 10 Matterport Pro2 Cameras to Matterport Pro3 Cameras” ...?
- Well, there’s other technical reasons. The Matterport Pro3 uses a different mechanism to do the measuring. It uses laser versus.
- Structured light, so LIDAR versus structured light.
- Yeah.
- More accuracy. Was that important to any of the tasks that you’re working on?
- Yeah, accuracy is important. We’re not held to a standard of building baby grand pianos to the inch or to a certain degree of accuracy is fine.
So unlike some companies that require just dead-on accuracy, we don’t claim that, but certainly for planning, estimating all of the uses that we provide, it’s very accurate.
- So before that you were using Matterport Pro2 Cameras. So, and even still, you have four of them. Are clients accepting of Matterport Pro2 Camera scans perhaps didn’t even know that there was something now more accurate and you felt like “oh, I really needed to update these cameras even before clients started to ask, so that we were delivering....” Tell me about this.
- Yeah. I have a sense of what’s coming and what’s expected. And so we still use the Pro2s and in interior projects, they still do a fantastic job and they hold up. So it’s not like I’m never going to use a Pro2 again.
I might actually increase my workforce and have Pro2s doing interiors and then hand off the file and have Pro3s doing exteriors because I’ve done that and it works perfectly fine. You can’t upload to a Matterport Classic Plan. You have to upload to one of the new plans. But the combination of Pro2 and Pro3 worked just fine.
- Did you notice, did your team notice that you could scan faster with the Matterport Pro3?
- Oh yeah. Yeah, the Pro3’s probably 30%, 40% faster. Instead of doing six increments [Rotations], it’s four. So you just about have to jog around the camera when you’re doing the scans.
- So in terms of faster, the first thing is that the Matterport Pro3 Camera rotates faster. Have you noticed that you’re able to move the camera scans further apart? So instead of it maybe every seven to 10 feet, maybe there’s times where you can jump 30 or 40 feet and that’s okay on the projects that you’re working on?
- Well, I use kind of the same spacing on the interiors because it’s always the angles and the corners and pillars and so forth. You want to be able to capture all the areas, but to your point, on the outside, that’s exactly what you can do.
You can space where it used to be eight steps, you can do 25, 30, even 50 steps. I’m not sure exactly what the maximum is, but it’s pretty substantial. So if you’re doing a parking lot, for example, that’s 10,000 square feet, it might only require 10 scans.
- So I think probably the key thing here that you described earlier is understanding the scope of work which the client’s asking for and probably not just what they want, but why they want it. And then that probably helps you determine how far apart the scans can be.
- Right, right, yeah.
- Have you noticed fewer, fewer scanning errors? Is that part of the speed bump of picking up some additional scanning faster or not really?
- Not really. I’ve had great luck with the Pro2s as long as you’re working within the parameters and understand reflection [Affects Stitching] and all of that kind of stuff, which you develop after you’ve done hundreds or thousands of scans, that’s not really an issue.
- And were there any other reasons to upgrade to a Matterport Pro3 Camera from a Matterport Pro2 Camera, from your perspective?
- Speed, the exterior kind of thing. Also, light, sunlight. There were times if you were doing a building with lots of windows in the bright light, you couldn’t get things to connect with the Pro2, and it’s not an issue with the Pro3.
- Okay, so I think I heard four things. Be able to scan outdoors; be able to scan indoors when there’s bright sun; accuracy of the scans; the ability to scan faster. Any additional reasons why you decided to get the Pro3s or benefits you realized once you got -- and I think the fifth thing was new business development.
That was a really big one. Was there anything else after you got the Pro3s, what was your reaction? “Oh, this is going to mean I can charge clients more.” “I can do more clients.” “I can do more jobs in the same day.”
- Sure, yeah. I mean, it is more efficient. And so all of those things make sense. Also, for my contractors that are using the cameras, it’s more enjoyable.
They’re smaller, lighter, easier to take on a plane, easier to put in a backpack and get around with, we had those big Nanuk kind of hard cases that we had the Pro2s and the iPads in, and that’s like a piece of luggage where with the Pro3s, you can literally put ‘em in your backpack along with the little batteries and so forth without checking another piece of luggage. So that’s another plus.
- You mentioned contractors. You have 10 cameras. Are these employees, are these contractors? What type of ...?
- No. They’re like family is what I would say. I have them set up as independent contractors because when I’m not working, I’m not paying. And so it allows me to control costs. I generally [Engage] older kinds of people. I don’t hire a bunch of kids or because the people I hire --
- I think what I’m hearing is you’re hiring people that are experienced, they happen to be older.
- That’s right. I’ve got a number of teachers that work for me in the summer. I’ve got semi-retired folks that love to travel and love to do the work and so forth. So not having to take care of all kinds of health insurance and vacation and all allows me to be very, very efficient. I pay a nice fair rate. They’re all happy, but when they’re not working for me, I’m not paying them.
- Yes, I believe I heard you say that over the course of time, you’ve literally have done, that G-Force has done thousands and thousands of Matterport scans. How do you deliver, keep track of, provide these tours to clients?
- Yeah, good question. In addition to using Matterport, and most of the time, what I encourage, especially with these larger clients and so forth, is that they hold the account with Matterport.
So because they want to own the files, they want to be able to leverage ‘em, all of that kind of stuff. I want to be able to provide a great service, a cost effective kind of service, and get it done for ‘em.
“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
Marcel Gyswyt Principal Owner | OwnerG-Force | Spaces & Places
www.GForceSI.com | www.SpacesPlacesPro.com
But at the end of the day, I want them to have the goods, and I think that makes the most sense. It’s either their property management group, their marketing group, whoever really needs to work with those files should hold the account. So that’s the way I set up most of my business.
- But it sounds like you do quite a bit of value add other than the Matterport: either totally separate deliverables or deliverables that are based on Matterport. Is there a special content management system for how you do this?
Do you process the models in your own Matterport accounts, then transfer the models, but do you have some mechanism?
- Yeah, so what I have, I have a portal, and in its simplest sense, I mean, it’s a content management system. It allows me to define projects, and within projects are a list of locations. And for all of the locations there’s certain information.
There can be surveys, there can be links, there can be photographs, there can be pretty much any type of document as attached to each location.
So what I do is with the Matterport, I attach the link to the location and it keeps track of everything. In addition to keeping track of all of the content, I also use it to optimize schedules, routes, all of that kind of stuff. So everyone’s kind of looking at the same, same thing. And it’s all-
- Including your clients.
- Yeah, including the clients and it’s rights based. So if there’s something that the client shouldn’t see, but is important for us to
manage our schedule or something like that, or if there’s financial information that the client wouldn’t want to share with my contractors, I can make it rights-based, that’s easy to set up.
- So I imagine the key thing here is it’s one database. So all your, so if you come back and say, “oh, it’s 150,000 square feet.” It’s not in your database, in the client’s database, in your subcontractor’s database. There’s one database that’s always current, one source of truth.
- Yeah, it’s our portal. And what I would say is that in most cases, at the end of a project, the client wants it in their database. So what’s nice about the portal that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, here’s the entire project, it has every document, every picture, every link, and they can import that to their system.
- Take me back in time. G-Force obviously provides a lot of site intelligence to get things done unrelated to Matterport. When did Matterport come on your radar and what were your initial thoughts and what triggered buying your first camera?
- Yeah, it was interesting. I’ve only used Matterport for, oh, I think like five years now. I wasn’t necessarily an early adopter. Prior to Matterport, I was actually using a product called PTGui. And I’m not sure if you heard about it, but.
- Yeah, I’ve used that in a previous life.
- Okay.
- Probably don’t want to spend too much time on PTGui.
- Yeah.
- Or PTGui Pro. Suffice to say you were doing 360s and stitching them all together. And then I imagine a long came Matterport and you went, “whoa, I don’t have to stitch images together.” “Whoa, I don’t have to create constellations.”
The scans are automatically stitched and connected from sphere-to-sphere-to-sphere. How did Matterport show up on your radar the first time? Do you remember?
- The first agency that hired me had heard of it, and they actually hired me just based on reputation. They had a big client and it was kind of a startup, and they needed a big survey done for their client.
And I was getting ready to show ‘em everything I could do with photo stitching and building tours and all of that kind of stuff. And they asked me if I’d heard of Matterport. And so that was kind of the beginning.
And I bought a Matterport Pro2 Camera and started playing around and it’s like, “oh my God! This makes all the sense in the world.” So over the course of a few months, I totally geared up and quit stitching, quit doing all of that backend work and used Matterport.
- So your client actually introduced you to Matterport and then you used Matterport to take care of their project at scale.
- That’s right.
- When did you end up, or why did you end up buying your second, your third, your fourth, your fifth, your 10th Matterport Pro2 Camera?
- Well, the work that they had was massive. They needed literally a couple thousand locations done. So I bought the Matterport Pro2 Cameras and instead of my team doing installs and hanging signs and doing other field work, we actually all had training in San Francisco.
I got everyone together in a classroom setting, and we had training and we went and did a couple of locations, everyone trying things out the next day, after everything was uploaded, we reviewed and all of that.
We hired somebody that was a Matterport kind of pro to get us going. But now my team probably they’re, I consider ‘em pros, they’ve done hundreds or thousands of locations.
- Tell me about [Www.SpacesPlacesPro.com], your other company.
- Okay. I set up Spaces & Places.
- Tell us about it today, and then we’ll go back in time.
- Okay.
- Kinds of clients for Spaces & Places? Clients different from G-Force?
- Yeah, Spaces & Places I would say is more focused locally here in the Minneapolis market. It focuses more on the residential kind of market.
And so doing homes more for marketing purposes, selling homes, whether it’s brokers or real estate agents, it’s set up to handle the one-offs. You can go there, you can look at the pricing model, slide the levers, figure out how much it’s going to cost, make a phone call, book it, and it’s done.
- So for clarification on www.SpacesPlacesPro.com there’s a calculator with slides on it, and you, the real estate agent -- it is do it yourself pricing where you say, “well, how many square feet is it?” Move the calculator over, “do you want it annotated?” Move that slide over. Boom, that’s your price.
- Yeah, right, right. So it’s very simple, it’s more focused on one-offs and.
- So why did you feel the need to -- you have G-Force -- it has been around a long time. Website: www.GForceSI.com
What was the impetus to say, “oh, I’m going to go create this other website, this other brand, Spaces & Places: www. SpacesPlacesPro.com
- Well, because I’m really hitting different customer bases. G-Force, like I say, I am interested in 50 or more locations. I’m not interested in dealing with a real estate agent, doing one home that type of thing.
So it was a way for me to, from even branding, pricing, all of that kind of standpoint to say, look, I can run this business this way and this business the other way. And with G-Force SI, that’s my primary business, Spaces & Places Pro is there, but I’m not putting near as much effort and so forth into that as G-Force.
- So if someone in Minneapolis discovers you through www. GForceSI.com and they are a real estate agent, they have a need for one or a few -- five, 10 spaces over the course of the year, You send them to www.SpacesPlacesPro.com, which is essentially do it yourself pricing, fill out the form and begin the scheduling process.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And that keeps your pricing separate because your pricing at scale is totally different from doing a one-off for a real estate agent.
“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
Marcel Gyswyt Principal Owner | OwnerG-Force | Spaces & Places
www.GForceSI.com | www.SpacesPlacesPro.com
- That’s correct. That’s correct. And yeah, I think the scale goes up to 10,000 feet. That’s a pretty big house.
But for our commercial clients it can be hundreds of thousands. I know you’re from Atlanta. We did the merger of SunTrust + BB&T to Truist, and we were scanning their corporate buildings. Each floor was 50,000 square feet. So.
- Trying to remember SunTrust and [BB&T] and turned it into --
- I think it turned into Truist.
- Turned into Truist.
- Something with [BB&T]
- Yeah, take me back to COVID. How important was COVID to today’s success of G-Force?
- It made flying and going through airports super-simple because nobody was around. I never stopped. When COVID hit, we got really busy because there were a lot of people that wanted to be able to continue to work with their spaces and maybe plan things, or even plan the safety kinds of things.
They used to put the squares or the circles where you had to stand six feet away from your neighbor and all the queue lines and all of that. Well, that was like perfect for Matterport because I could give ‘em a floor plan and they could plot exactly where the decals had to go and be able to get that accomplished.
So yeah, COVID was a good time for the business. I’m glad it’s, well, I hear it’s kind of coming back again.
- So did you find that existing clients all of a sudden had a surge of more projects for you and that yet other clients, new clients found you and said, “Gee. I need hundreds, I need thousands of spaces scanned.” I have no other way to do the business that we would normally do.
- Yeah. I never -- I’ve got 10 people, so I’m not doing enormous amounts of scanning, but I’m keeping ‘em busy and with 10 people doing even two or three a day, it’s 30 in a week, 150, all of a sudden it adds up really quick.
So it was a good time and yeah. And so it built a base and I think it allowed us to build a reputation and so forth. I’ve done stuff for some of the other folks in your network. IFTI/PROvision Solutions. A few different firms & so forth.
- IFTI/PROvision Solutions
- Yeah, yeah. And they’re great, but I work with a set group and I know exactly what their capabilities are and the scope’s usually a bit more involved. It’s not just scanning, so.
- Is that what differentiates you from maybe any other -- If I’m a Matterport Service Provider, I’m kind of scratching my head saying, “Hey, business is kind of slow, real estate is slow, real estate interest rates are high, inventory’s down. I’m trying to figure out how to be busier.”
It sounds like you’re very busy. Is it because that Matterport is a subset of a bigger business and that Matterport enables all the things that you described in terms of installation, surveys, remodels, retrofits, space planning, safety planning, insurance analysis, financial analysis, site showcase.
All those different things where the Matterport is a piece of it, but then you have this value add where you start counting things and calculating things and have all kinds of deliverables on top of just delivering the Matterport.
- I think that’s exactly it. And when I talk to a prospective new client, I’m really, I want to get past the pretty picture as fast as I can and figure out “what are you trying to accomplish?” Because unless you are saving ‘em money or making ‘em money, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to feel like whatever I am providing is adding that value that it’s like, “oh my God. This makes sense.
And by integrating different things, whether that’s information in our portal that we collect or integrating between Matterport and Google Earth or some other provider, whether it -- I know there’s a lot of add-ons now to Matterport, and I’m constantly scanning those kind of capabilities too, because if there’s something that makes sense to my clients and it’s going to add value and it’s priced appropriately, I’m going to pull those folks in too.
And I actually, a couple of my clients are marketing agencies and so forth, and they do the BIM file, they download the E57, create AutoCAD, all of that kind of stuff. I want to feed them as much business as possible too, because they’re very good at what they do, and it’s adding value to the end client. That’s what it’s all about.
- So in terms of digital deliverables, I hear Matterport, I think I heard photos. Are you delivering the Matterport E57 file, the Matterport MatterPak Bundle, or really you’re delivering the Matterport tour and your client is downloading those assets?
- Yeah, like I said, I encourage my clients to hold the account with Matterport, whether it’s the end client or their agency or property management group, I don’t want to pay those monthly fees. I don’t want to get into that.
What I want to do is what I do best and hand it off. If they want E57s and drawings and all of that kind of stuff, I’m more than happy to teach ‘em how to download it and turn ‘em on to folks that know how to deal with creating Revit and all of that. I’ve got lots of connections there.
- Okay, you mentioned add-ons. So far in terms of deliverables, I’ve heard Matterport photos, the client can download the Matterport E57 file, the Matterport MatterPak Bundle, are there anything aerial photography, is it floor plans, anything else that you’re delivering digitally?
Or maybe, I’m not sure how to ask the question. Your tech goes out to do Matterport, are they doing laser measurements as well for some reason? Are they taking photos of data plates on chiller units, Boilers? Help me understand what other things that a Matterport tech is doing on site for you.
- Yeah, there are certain projects where very accurate measurements are required. So they all have laser measuring devices and so forth as well. So in some cases, we’re filling out a form that has these measurements and so forth.
There’s other times where it might be an interview where the person who’s meeting with the manager and getting permission to photograph and do all the Matterport kind of stuff has a list of 10 questions that they’re asking the manager that gets
documented in our portal, and then at the end of the project that goes to somebody at corporate to analyze or whatever. So it can be any number of kinds of things that we can do.
Again it’s, I try to tease that out, like, “Hey, we’re in the field, we’re touching every branch, what can we do that would be of value and so forth?”
And sometimes they allow us to do that because if you’re talking to a person face-to-face, chances are they’re going to be a lot more responsive than getting an email and filling out a survey. All you get there is -- All right, so it just depends.
- Marcel, we’ve covered a lot of topics today. Before we say bye, is there anything that I didn’t ask you that I should have asked you? Anything else that you wanted to share with Matterport Service Providers thinking about buying their first Matterport Pro3 Camera?
- Yeah I’ve been extremely happy with mine and it’s performed very well, so I know it’s not cheap, it’s a chunk of dough.
I wouldn’t recommend it if all you’re doing is interiors, but if you’re starting to go outside and all of that kind of stuff, there’s definitely some value. And yeah, I think we’ve covered everything fairly well.
- Awesome Marcel, thanks for being on the show today.
- Yeah, thank you.
“So what’s nice about the [G-Force] portal [content management system] that we’ve developed is I can pretty much push a button and it literally dumps all of the stuff by location, by date … it just gives it to you in this most organized zip file. So I can say, ‘here’s the entire project. It has every document, every picture, every link,’ and [the client] can import that to their [CMS] system.”
Marcel Gyswyt Principal Owner | OwnerG-Force | Spaces & Places
www.GForceSI.com | www.SpacesPlacesPro.com
- We’ve been visiting with Marcel Gyswyt, the owner of G-Force and owner of Spaces & Places. The website for G-Force is: www.GForceSI.com The company name is G-Force: www.GForceSI.com
And for Spaces & Places, it’s www.SpacesPlacesPro.com
Marcel, based in Minneapolis, but actually your footprint all over the United States. For Marcel, I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. And you’ve been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.
