I thought I’d share an interesting experience that happened a few days ago.
When I showed up to shoot a high-end acreage property, my client pointed out that the homeowner is a builder and built the property that I was about to shoot. He pointed out that when the property was listed a few years ago, there was a great deal of uncertainty about the square footage.
The owner/builder was adamant that he knew the precise square footage of the property. In my jurisdiction (Alberta, Canada) there’s a specific measurement standard that must be used by realtors – which often is different from builder’s measurements because they don’t necessarily adhere to the the real estate standard. So we have to take builder’s measurements with a grain of salt, despite the owner claiming his measurements were compliant.
When the listing was previously listed, three companies measured the property. One of them was an iGuide operator. None of the measurements were consistent.
I shot the property as I always do with my IMS-5 and waited impatiently for the measurements to come back.
The iGuide results came back at 2896 sq ft. The owner/builder’s measurements were 2890 sq ft. We’re talking about. 0.002% variance, and some of that might be explained by the owner saying the wall thickness is 6 3/8", which I rounded to 6.5".
My takeaways from this:
I’m very happy with the accuracy of the IMS-5.
The realtor was very happy with the accuracy. In fact, he asked me if I coached the drafters on what square footage to use. (Which of course, we can’t do because the data is mathematical.)
The onsite process for iGuide operators is important. I’m not sure how else to explain that the original measurements from a different iGuide operator were over 100 sq ft off.
The owner was pleased that the results matched his expectation, the realtor was pleased that his choice of measurer/photographer made him look good and reinforced his choice to continue hiring me, and I was pleased that I continue having confidence in the results of my IMS-5.
Some properties in Alberta were shot in 2016-2017 with IMS-4 camera which did not use laser time-of-flight measurements, but used laser triangulation/structured light approach (like Matterport does today) and square footage error could be as big as 5-6% if the camera was not periodically calibrated by the operator. When Alberta Residential Measurement Standard added the requirement of max 2% error in square footage in mid-2017, all iGUIDE Operators in Alberta switched to IMS-5.
@LeroySchulz I literally just had a similar experience. I shot a property developer’s house. He built it and was very keen to see the measurements. I sent the results to him and he immediately said it wasn’t accurate. After describing that he was looking at the interior measurements (wall-to-wall) and comparing with the builder’s measurements including exterior wall, he was amazed. He showed me the house’s footprint was 1973 sq ft. My measurements using my normal IMS-5 shoot process, was 1980.1 sq ft. So mine too probably had variance from calculating wall thickness. He couldn’t believe how accurate the iGUIDE measurement was.
I’m very happy and thankful with partnering with Planitar.
I laughed when Matterport announced going public via a SPAC. When is Planitar’s reverse merger with a Canadian shell company on the Canadian Venture Exchange? Or do a reverse merger with Urbanimmersive (UI.V). I’d buy your guys’s stock in a heart beat, even if it was at a premium. Going public isn’t for every company, but it sure would deepen relationships and provide even more of a team atmosphere with operators if we could own stock in Planitar as well as run our own operations.
Glad to hear that you had a similar experience. Those experiences validate our choice of technology, doesn’t it?
As for Planitar’s business model or future plans, all we can do is guess. But I do want them to have a strong balance sheet so they can keep innovating and producing technologies that allow us to make a living doing what we love.
