My landlord here in Beijing is selling the apartment, but luckily he’s including our rental contract until the end of the contract as part of the deal to the buyer. This morning, the realor came over to take photographs of the apartment. The camera was the coolest camera i have ever seen! It looked like a giant Kodak Brownie. The photographer set it up, and we all had to go to another room while the camera rotated a full 360°. The camera is a digital camera but with a twist (sorry about the pun): it takes still photos of the room at pre-defined increments and it also digitally creates a 3D floorplan of the place!
Can you identify the camera, or one like it; also, how much does such a thing cost?
Sounds like some kind of panoramic camera. But I’m confused about its ability to create a 3D floorplan. That sounds more like a “total station”, a surveying instrument that uses a laser beam to record direction and also distance (with laser pulse timing) to each target. There are automatic ones that are used, for example, to create accurate 3D models of crime scenes.
If you google “panoramic camera”, does anything look familiar?
360 degree scanning systems are all the rage in the property selling business. They create a quick floor plan and 3d walkthrough virtual tour that makes for a snazzy website.
I suspect the property sales business is somewhat less exacting in its measuring requirements than the surveyor tools market.
These high end, professional, systems will eventually be challenged by consumer grade 3D cameras. I would not be surprised you will be able to do it all with a smartphone before too long.
Isn’t that the law? Just because the landlord changed his mind in the middle of a contract doesn’t give him the right to void a lease. He wrote the contract so he’s liable to fulfill it just as the tenant is liable to fulfill it.
Evidently not the law as the property is being “removed from the market”. China is apparently still having a lot of growing pains regarding real estate issues.
That looks almost exactly like the thing I saw this morning. Thanks! I guess the small variations might be because of either year of manufacture or simply slightly different casing and functionality/ies for the local market.
I volunteer at a windmill in Cape Town, South Africa. We had unusual luck when local people from the nearby University of Cape Town could not travel due to Covid. So to keep their skills up and teach others with a very similar camera, they mapped our mill.
Unfortunately shortly afterwards, April 2021, there was a wildfire that eventually burnt the mill to the ground, with only the stone/brick walls, and ironwork surviving.
That scan has been incredible for the restoration - we have to the millimeter sizes and accurate plans - and we plan to re-open in April this year. The laser scans have been invaluable in the restoration.
(Off topic I know, but the question has been answered.)
I am looking at getting us a system like this at work.
It is a subscription service and the equipment can be bought with it or separately. Haven’t looked into exactly what the hardware is, I know Leica has something as someone described in another post.