Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing Series: Importing Matterport 3D Spaces in Autodesk Recap
How to import Matterport 3D spaces into Autodesk Recap Pro and optimize your point cloud before you being modeling mechanical, electrical, plumbing (MEP) systems in Autodesk Revit.
In the first post of our series, we highlighted tips for scanning mechanical spaces with the Matterport Pro2 Camera based on our project at Toronto Western Hospital. This post is all about HOW to import Matterport 3D spaces into Autodesk Recap Pro and optimize your point cloud before you being modeling mechanical, electrical, plumbing (MEP) systems in Autodesk Revit.
If you want to help your team bypass hours manually aligning point clouds, there’s no better way to do it than with the Matterport Cloud. Even if you are using a laser scanner, such as the Leica BLK 360, you can still integrate with the Matterport Cloud, taking advantage of processing, auto-stitching, and sharing your 3D spaces. After scanning your site, upload the scans to the Matterport Cloud for processing. This process is push-button simple. Matterport processes the scans in the cloud, and this process takes several hours to receive the 3D space in our Matterport Cloud account. Be aware, if we have 200+ scans or very complex geometry from MEP sites, the processing can take a bit longer.
For an MEP project the size of the Toronto Western Hospital, we saved hours, bypassing the process of manually aligning the point cloud that makes up our 3D space. The Matterport Cloud auto stitches the point clouds, colorizes the 3D space, and registers it as a .xyz format. Once you have your Matterport 3D space, use the Matterport Cloud to view, edit, measure, share, and download files for MEP modeling in your BIM software.
The HH Angus team followed best practices (shared in my first post) for scanning mechanical rooms of Toronto Western Hospital. Using the Matterport Cloud, we saved hours, bypassing the process of manually aligning the point clouds the make up our 3D space. We documented systems at Toronto Western Hospital, scanning 17,500 square feet of the site.
Want to learn how to expedite your Revit modeling process?
Learn how to process your Matterport 3D spaces using Autodesk Recap Pro with these easy steps!
1. Create a new project in Autodesk RecapPro
Speed Recap performance working locally, rather than on the network. Download the MatterPak and export a .xyz point cloud file of the Matterport 3D space into Autodesk RecapPro.
2. Organize and save regions as unique files
Ensure your designers can toggle to view unique sections of the 3D space while modeling, and saving each region as a separate file ensures Revit model performance.
3. Remove unnecessary objects, like garbage bins
Eliminate anything you might confuse as equipment, so you can model faster, later in Revit.
4. Isolate regions, such as walls, floors, or equipment with the Limit Box
The Autodesk RecapPro Limit box helps you isolate and save specific regions, such as walls, floors, and equipment.
5. Establish depths and select points with the Plane Selection Tool
The Autodesk RecapPro Plane Selection tool helps you establish and adjust a specific depth and increase points along that plane.
6. Select objects with unusual shapes with the Fence Selection Tool
The Autodesk RecapPro Fence Selection Tool helps you select objects with unusual shapes, which is versatile when modeling MEP sites.
7. Create regions within existing regions with the Window Selection Tool
The Autodesk RecapPro WINDOW SELECTION TOOL helps you create regions within existing regions.
8. Create Work Sets to help you identify areas of interest in any view
Creating Work Sets helps you identify areas of interest in any view, as well as cut section views when modeling. Autodesk Revit makes it easy to turn off the visibility of worksets when you produce print views of your model. Use the view range to slice the point cloud at a specific elevation to determine which systems are running through the area of interest. Section views with a very shallow view depth help to identify the systems you are cutting through. Then, measure the point cloud in Revit to determine the size of equipment. Toggle the visibility of point cloud regions to help clean up your view as you work. It is helpful to have a plan, section and 3D views open at once - alongside your Matterport 3D space on a second monitor to fully understand the systems in the space.
9. Link regions like puzzle pieces with the Origin-to-Origin Tool
The Autodesk RecapPro Origin-To-Origin positioning option helps you ensure saved point cloud regions link perfectly, like puzzle pieces fitting together. This ensures you superimpose individual regions as they existed. Create one workset for point clouds and hide it for print views.
10. Apply Phasing to identify new modeling designs for existing facilities
Apply Phasing to help you distinguish the existing facility you’ve modeled in Recap from the design work you’re about to begin in Revit. Now, with your existing facility model prepared in Recap, you’re ready for next week’s post, where we’ll provide tips, helping you analyze your facility and model future phases in Autodesk Revit. You might also want to take a look at our on-demand webinar, where we walk all the tips from our MEP blog series in our Toronto Western Hospital case study.
Read the Blog 1 - Tips on Scanning MEP Spaces
Read the Blog 3 - Modeling Existing Spaces within Autodesk Revit
