The Future of Space in the Palm of Your Hand

At Matterport, our mission is to digitize and index the built world. We make it possible for anyone to create a three-dimensional digital twin of any physical space that can be shared, published and viewed online--from homes, office buildings, hotels and vacation rentals to factories, historic landmarks and everything in between. Today, the mission has become more important and more urgent than we ever could have imagined. More on that later in the post.

Earlier this month, we announced Matterport for iPhone, a revolutionary way to capture physical spaces in immersive 3D with the phone in your pocket. An important component to our global platform strategy, Matterport for iPhone completes the circle—a camera for every space. Our flagship Pro2 business has never been stronger, and the explosive growth of our support for third party capture devices such as the Insta360, Ricoh Theta, and Leica's LIDAR-based BLK give our customers the ultimate range of options to suit every need—from a 300 square foot micro loft to a 200,000 square foot factory. And now, Matterport 3D capture is on-demand any time, any place, using just your iPhone.

Matterport for iPhone was built from our innovation and industry firsts that preceded it over the past several years. As our library of spatial data has grown, so too has our ability to derive new, data-driven AI-powered techniques for breakthrough 3D capture. Like Matterport for 360 cameras launched in 2019, Matterport for iPhone is untethered from a special camera lens or depth sensors to create true 3D digital twins of any space.

The AI engine that powers these breakthroughs is called Cortex, our deep learning neural network that is so advanced that it can accurately predict 3D building geometry and produce a high fidelity digital twin from a standard smartphone camera found in iPhones as far back as the iPhone 6S. Cortex is trained using our tried and true spatial data library for the built world, comprising more than 7 billion square feet of spatial data from 80 countries, including almost every type of building imaginable. Credit the Matterport Pro1 and Pro2 cameras for capturing this uncompromising ground truth in spatial data that makes today's milestone a reality.

This also marks the beginning of an exciting new stage of growth for Matterport. The power to transform any physical space with any device into a high fidelity digital twin is our new starting point. From here, Matterport will race to deliver more breakthroughs that help us better understand and utilize our buildings using data to create new ways to maximize their value.

We decided to launch Matterport for iPhone several months ahead of schedule for one important reason: to help keep the real estate and property industry moving forward during these challenging times when physical access to spaces and buildings of all kinds is limited. We've helped keep Realtors going, opened virtual museum tours around the world, enabled insurance and restoration claims to continue, enabled apartments, offices, warehouses to be rented, and houses to be bought and sold. More buyers than ever are turning to Matterport tours to help them make a purchase decision without ever setting foot inside the property.

Matterport for iPhone is for everyone. It connects us and the spaces we are in, creating new ways to stay productive while most of us around the world are living and working within the confines of shelter in place guidelines. We've opened up the service so that anyone can freely capture, customize, publish, promote, and share a Matterport space that viewers can explore in immersive interactive 3D. Think open house, rental listing, quick appraisal, share your new home theater, home office or home gym, get remodeling and redecorating ideas, or maybe you're just itching to flaunt your epic sneaker collection that's taken over your walk-in closet. If you can see it, Matterport can capture it. Just download the app and go.

I'm hopeful that this new product can launch a thousand successes for our customers old and new during these challenging times. I am equally excited to see where people take Matterport from here. Let us know what you think, and feel free to capture and share your space with our community on social, using the #MatterportYourSpace tag. We'd love to see what you come up with and how you are getting things done and staying inspired through it all. We'll be sharing some creative spaces captured by our fellow Matterpeeps (our employees) working tirelessly to keep peace in the galaxy one space at a time.

To view the original article, visit the Matterport blog.