This week, construction site reality capture specialist OpenSpace announced a number of new capabilities and integrations within their platform which they say are “aimed at increasing the scale, speed and reliability of its reality capture platform.” The changes, which include new features added to OpenSpace Capture as well as new connections and integrations available to users of the platform, should make the process of collecting 360-degree reality capture data more efficient and mobile-friendly for those in the field.
OpenSpace Capture is a platform for collecting reality capture data quickly and seamlessly connected to a mobile device. Users connect a 360-degree camera to a smart device and can walk a job site while seeing progress of a project as they are doing so, with OpenSpace indicating users can capture 25,000 square feet in 10 minutes, with data being viewable within 15 minutes. The platform also provides AI capabilities to provide instant information about the site in the application. OpenSpace Capture supports 360-degree video and photography, as well as laser scanning, with devices able to be collected by a human walking a site or integrated with a drone or robot.
The company’s announcement of the new additions to the OpenSpace Capture platform came in two categories, starting with a list of five new features which serve to make the process of collecting data for a jobsite and coordinating with office teams more seamless. These are the listed improvements, from the company’s announcement:
Background uploads: Removes the need to wait for internet to complete the capture upload, with the app simply starting the upload process as soon as a connection is found.
Capture coverage heatmap: Displays areas previously captured to aid in planning the next site walk.
Image enhancements: Automatically improves brightness, shadows and sharpness of the 360° capture, reducing the need for additional site visits.
QuickConnect: Easily connects popular 360° cameras to the OpenSpace mobile application through a single tap, without requiring a WiFi password.
Field Note gallery: Allows anyone capturing in the field to easily add images, videos, attachments, and edit field notes quickly while working within the OpenSpace mobile application.
In addition to these features added directly into OpenSpace Capture, users can also benefit from three new connections to other platforms or hardware to allow for greater capacity in capturing as much information about a jobsite as possible. Those additions, again from the announcement of the news, are:
Heat notes: Allows easy capture of thermal conditions on site using the FLIR One Pro camera.
Drone elevation captures and native image ingestion: Enables the capture of building elevations for more efficient and safer QA/QC on facades.
Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) integrations: Access OpenSpace from directly within ACC Build, and easily export RFIs and issues into ACC from OpenSpace Field Notes.
All of these new additional capabilities and connections serve, as mentioned above, to streamline the process of collecting data from a jobsite with the amount of accuracy necessary to maximize value. Things like the background uploads and QuickConnect simply remove tedious steps in order to share data with the necessary stakeholders, while the image enhancements and coverage heatmaps ensure fewer site visits and thus more efficient workflows for everyone in a project. The connections, meanwhile, help provide more capturing options and simpler workflows.
Individually, none of these changes are particularly groundbreaking, but taken together they have the potential for material change to workflows and collaboration. Reality capture in general is moving towards ubiquity on construction sites, and now the next step is making the process require as little training as possible while minimizing on-site disruption. OpenSpace, who also recently added a new BIM-focused product, in particular puts significant focus on cutting down time to collect and share data – important goals in an industry that has long been plagued by inefficiency – and these additions to the OpenSpace Capture platform support those goals.
"These new capabilities are the result of our customers asking us to lead the way, and our computer vision and AI teams have responded," explained Neel Sheth, VP of Product at OpenSpace, in a press statement. "The pace of innovation at OpenSpace has been remarkable with our OpenSpace platform becoming faster, more reliable, and scalable in the process."
