CubiCasa is proud to announce that 2021 will be a year full of news for both the company and its customers. Since the birth of our business in 2014, we have been continuously striving to provide our customers with the latest innovations and an ever-increasing quality of service. CubiCasa 2.0 was released on 28th of January with a bunch of new features which will make our app even more capable for real estate professionals. Read on to discover the main new features of our app.
Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation.
– Clayton Christensen, economist and Harvard professor
1 – LiDAR and ToF support
Among the new features introduced by CubiCasa, the most interesting is undoubtedly the support of LiDAR and ToF sensors which will improve the accuracy and quality of the floor plans. What does it mean? First of all, you need to know that LiDAR and ToF are sensors for measuring distance. LiDAR is the acronym for Light Imaging Detection and Ranging and consists of a remote sensing technique that allows you to measure the distance of an object using laser pulses as if they were radar. This is a concept born in the 1960s and it’s so important that it was even used to map the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission!
A pulse is fired in a single direction at the speed of light. It is made of infrared light and invisible to our eyes. After that, a special electronic instrumentation calculates the time elapsed between sending and the receiving of the impulse which is reflected by objects such as walls, furniture, windows, etc. Finally, the LiDAR sensor does not record colors or images but it creates a three-dimensional map based on the objects and surfaces in the field of view.
ToF (Time of Flight) is also a 3D mapping sensor which is less sophisticated than LiDAR. The process of measuring is similar, however ToF is less accurate as it sends only one pulse, while the LiDAR sends numerous pulses in the same direction.
CubiCasa strives to create the most accurate floor plans for its customers. This is the reason we want to take advantage of LiDAR and ToF support of mobile devices to allow you to capture and create floor plans at the highest possible quality. Depth sensors give us two great advantages compared to traditional camera only approaches:
- Depth sensors increase accuracy: if we were scanning with a non-depth device, the depth would be estimated via AI in the CubiCasa system. Although our scanning solution is generally accurate, the result is not the same as what would be obtained using a device equipped with these new sensors.
- Depth sensors provide more stable position tracking: The device is sometimes unable to accurately calculate its position while scanning. This happens when, for example, we are in a dimly lit space where there are not enough details to figure out the position and movement based on the camera feed alone ( below you will find another surprise concerning how to deal with dark rooms). LiDAR and ToF enable more accurate tracking since the information it collects can be used to calculate the location even in dark spaces or feature sparse environments.
In other words: improving scan quality means producing an even more accurate floor plan! Apple has introduced LiDAR technology in the new iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPad Pro 2020. Here are the models equipped with a 3D ToF sensor and supported by CubiCasa app for Android: Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G, Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G
2 – Total Square Footage
Thanks to the use of LiDAR, a typical CubiCasa measurement has an average error of 2.73%. With this level of accuracy, we decided to add total square footage automatically to all floor plans made with LiDAR and ToF devices.
3 – Floor plan themes
Each brand has its own visual identity that differentiates them from their competitors. This is made of numerous elements among which the colors are one of the most important. For example, while scrolling you may come across an ad and from its colors alone you immediately understand who made it even before reading the name of the brand. The black and white floor plans are elegant, minimalist and concise. However, we want to give our clients the possibility to customize the floor plan according to your own needs. With CubiCasa 2.0 you have new tools to make your floor plan more brand oriented, including:
- Black & White, Grayscale, Elegant with tiling in the bathrooms, Earth Tones with different colors for room types, Wet spaces where you can find blue color in the wet spaces and Blueprint where all appliances and doors are hidden.
- Different color combinations for room types
- Background colors
- Different fonts
- The possibility of varying door swing angles
Now imagine a floor plan in which each room has a different color based on the type, or where you can add your logo and many other elements that refer to your brand. Are you still sure you want to settle for a black and white floor plan? Below you can find some examples from our themes:
Black&White
Grayscale
Elegant
Earth Tones
Wet Spaces
Blueprint
4 – Floor plan rotation
The possibility to choose from a wide range of themes to customize your floor plan is not enough to make your floor plan reflect your personality. This is the reason why now we provide the chance to change its orientation: if you want to rotate a floor plan, you can ask for a rotation while filing a fix request and our team will take care of the rest. The possibility to rotate might come handy with complex floor plans or in case you need to print your floor plan with different orientation.
5 – Auto torch or auto flashlight
In previous articles we have already explained how important it is to prepare the space before the scan and above all how important light is for CubiCasa scans. We always recommend opening the shutters and turning on the light in every room. However, it is not always that simple and each house has its own corners where there is no good lighting despite our efforts. Thanks to the 2.0 update, the built-in flashlight of your device will light up automatically in case you are scanning in a dark space. No more tracking failures in dark spaces!
6 – Speech recognition
You can now label rooms during the scan with our new speech recognition feature. This feature is available for all platforms and all devices. You can find the new button that is used to trigger the speech recognition above the record button on the updated scanning screen. After pressing the button, say the room label outloud and select the correct room label from the list of suggestions on the screen. This small feature can make a big difference: it greatly reduces the possibility of labeling errors and fix requests, thus decreasing the delivery time of your floor plan.
We are excited for this fresh start and we hope that we have managed to convey our enthusiasm and the passion we put into what we do. If you are still puzzled about CubiCasa 2.0 features, don’t hesitate to consult the Help Center section or contact us to ask any question.
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