The time to sniff the place was a bit more but the quality looked better. Let's not get fooled by speed : without a good 3D copy of the place you are... screwed. Because our eyes can't stand gross mistakes.
The biggest challenge about 3D mapping like this isn't about the tech itself, but about actually making it useful for end users. These demos are cool, but the important thing is that you need to build out the part of the software that makes it useful/valuable for consumer/business applications. Otherwise, you should be working on the tech in a research lab vs. a venture-funded business.
This is a trap that even we've admittedly fallen into at times.
Spot on. Body tracking has a similar usability challenge with consumers. I'm finding myself focused more on the E2E experience and workflow integration than the 3D pose estimation itself.
Works fine when you're standing up, but when you lean sideways and see your body acting like you took a step to the side and are still standing up straight, that's a little unnerving.
1) Real estate seems like a large market for this technology.
2) The specific space in the link looks like it would photograph well, but the 3D version reminds me that it has low ceilings and a lot of areas with limited natural lighting. i.e. it does a worse job than photographs for the purpose — selling the unit — because you can find the unflattering perspectives.
(Side: the red dot is very confusing as regards browser pointer-lock, and the whole thing seemed very awkward to navigate with a trackpad until I discovered that WASD worked.)
On a different note — if possible, I'd love to chat about your experience with the UI. Do you have an email I can reach out to?
What you are showing is definitely in another league and could be used for an industry like [2] (not that I like the ecological aspect of such travel).
[1] https://diginetmedia.de/virtualreality/360-vr-tour [2] https://www.tuicruises.com/mein-schiff-1
They're based in LA & have called their approach CPS - Camera Positioning System.