When founder Chris Hickman first created MPEmbed’s customization platform in 2018, he couldn’t have guessed where the company would go.
MPEmbed was initially founded as an extension of the Matterport community. Hickman himself was both an experienced developer as well as a long-time Matterport Service Provider (MSP), having been awarded the title of MSP Ambassador. Fully developed from the capabilities available in Matterport’s software development kit (SDK), the platform was originally created as a no-cost extension for others to generate even more value from their Matterport digital twins.
Today, MPEmbed offers both free and premium users hundreds of features to customize digital twins to meet their unique business needs.
Developing Solutions for the Matterport Community
Yann Menard began leading MPEmbed’s team of developers in September 2020, having since doubled the company’s premium user base. Menard himself has been working with Matterport’s technology since 2015, and initially found the platform as an MPEmbed community member before coming on to manage the company himself.
The team at MPEmbed wears many different hats, serving as a Matterport Platform Partner, an MSP, and even offering specific systems-based integrations through one-on-one professional services.
MPEmbed was first and foremost founded by Hickman as a platform created by users for users. Today, with hundreds of premium customers across the globe, the company prides itself on its customer support, running several Facebook pages and discussion boards to give their users a forum to ask for help and discuss challenges they’re facing.
“The number one reason people subscribe to us is because they trust us,” says Menard.
“Every industry is going virtual,” explains Menard. “There’s an increasing number of enterprises beginning to move toward digitalization of buildings, whether it’s for training, maintenance or organizational needs. We’re seeing this as an opportunity to design new features across industries to meet this challenge.”
As Menard says, the public release of Matterport’s SDK has created even more options for customization for MPEmbed.
“People want to go deeper into the immersive Matterport experience, and the SDK opens up so much more to our users,” says Menard. “We are seeing an additional opportunity to provide custom development and solutions for larger, global organizations.”
MPEmbed’s Wide Range of Features
The development team at MPEmbed creates features on an as-needed basis to provide users with the tools they need to get the most out of their Matterport digital twins.
Some of the free features available to all users include an interactive mini-map, a user-friendly directory of all the tags in a space, and Google Analytics capabilities to track visitor behavior in real-time.
For premium users, MPEmbed has focused heavily on extending the capabilities of Mattertags. They developed a “billboard” that pops up from a Mattertag that displays native videos and audio files without opening up a new window, allowing visitors to remain immersed in the space. MPEmbed even hosts images and files through their own media library, meaning users can upload files directly to the platform withouting using another hosting service
Visit this digital twin here
Visit this digital twin here
Visit this digital twin here
In addition to these billboards, premium users are able to leverage panel events, where an invisible tag is triggered as visitors navigate through a digital twin. For both premium and free users, the flexibility and customization offered by MPEmbed's features allow them to get even more creative and find more ways to provide their own clients and users a more immersive virtual experience.
Museums, Travel, and Hospitality
MPEmbed has created features applicable to nearly every industry. Recently, the company’s platform has been increasingly leveraged by some of the top museums in the world, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
The museum came to MPEmbed looking for a way to integrate an existing audio guide with its virtual tour. By using Mattertags to embed MP3 files, visitors can now click through the tour and interact with the tags to play audio files containing detailed information about the artwork and other pieces without having to navigate away from the model.
“The MPEmbed team enabled us to offer virtual tours of our exhibitions on our website during the global pandemic,” says Véronic Benoit, Team Leader of Digital Development at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. “Though the doors of the museum were closed, MPEmbed helped us launch a major exhibition by developing a feature that allowed us to include audio guides and personalized programming for points of interest and visuals in the tours. This initiative was very popular with our customers who appreciated being able to virtually visit our exhibitions.”
MMFA Projects:
Visit this digital twin here
Visit this digital twin here
Menard also note that Egypt’s Ministry of tourism and antiquities has begun to use MPEmbed platform through NAV3D, a local MSP, to create more immersive experiences
Visit the digital twin here
By leveraging MPEmbed’s unique features, museums around the world are able to offer their visitors a virtual tour that reflects the same experience they would receive exploring the exhibits and showcases in person.
Doing More with Matterport and MPEmbed
By utilizing the endless combination of features provided by MPEmbed, there’s no limit to users’ creativity when it comes to doing more with their Matterport models.
"With the new SDK model that’s come out, we're excited to move ahead and develop more new features while continuing to find new ways to support both our users and their own end-users," concludes Menard.
ABOUT MPEmbed
MPEmbed leverages the Matterport SDK to offer users an extensive customization platform to further enhance their Matterport digital twins. Some of the free features available to all users include an interactive mini-map, a user-friendly directory of all the tags in a space, and Google Analytics capabilities to track visitor behavior in real-time. MPEmbed offers users hundreds of features to customize their digital twins to meet their unique business needs.
HEADQUARTERS
Maria, Québec. Canada
PRODUCTS
Matterport SDK
https://matterport.com/industries/case-studies/how-mpembed-doubled-premium-users-matterport-platform-tools