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One Site Visit, Four Deliverables: PortalCam Flythrough Videos from a Historic English Bed and Breakfast

Case Studies5 min read

See how XGRIDS dealer AGS turned one PortalCam visit to a historic English bed and breakfast into three flythrough videos and an interactive 3DGS scene.

Anatum GeoMobile Solutions (AGS), an authorized XGRIDS dealer, scanned an English country house with PortalCam and produced three videos and two browser-based interactive scenes from the same data. This is how the work came together, and what AGS would add to the next capture.

The Green is a country house bed and breakfast in Wiltshire, England, that dates to before 1697. Matt Alexander of AGS scanned its common rooms and grounds with a PortalCam while the house was open to guests, then used the resulting 3D Gaussian splatting (3DGS) scenes as source material for four deliverables, each aimed at a different audience.

Scanning a historic bed and breakfast with PortalCam

PortalCam is a single-operator handheld spatial camera, and the time it takes to walk through a site is enough to recreate a measurable, photorealistic 3DGS model. At The Green, Matt worked alone, and the house did not need to close.

The interior common areas, roughly 2,000 square feet by his estimate, took about 15 minutes, and bedrooms in use by guests were left out. The grounds took about 35 minutes for roughly three acres. The visit involved no tripods, drone, or separate video camera. The data processed overnight into two 3DGS scenes, one for the exterior and one for the interior.

Gravel path curving across the lawn between mature trees in a 3D property survey of the grounds at The Green
Gravel path curving across the lawn between mature trees in a 3D property survey of the grounds at The Green
Stone facade of The Green with wisteria over the terrace, captured by a handheld spatial camera from ground level
Stone facade of The Green with wisteria over the terrace, captured by a handheld spatial camera from ground level
Looking down the main staircase past gilt-framed oil portraits, an interior scene documented for cultural preservation
Looking down the main staircase past gilt-framed oil portraits, an interior scene documented for cultural preservation
Red-walled sitting room with fireplace, round table and a large framed painting, explorable in a house virtual tour
Red-walled sitting room with fireplace, round table and a large framed painting, explorable in a house virtual tour
Twelve framed botanical prints above a green settee in a hallway rebuilt with reality capture software
Twelve framed botanical prints above a green settee in a hallway rebuilt with reality capture software

From 3D Gaussian splatting scene to flythrough video

A 3DGS scene has no fixed camera, so every route, height, and angle inside the captured area remains available after the visit. The operator's walking route determines what the scene contains, and the camera path is created afterward. Alexander describes this as "the freedom to go anywhere inside the survey area, from ground level up into the sky in a drone-view fashion."

Green capture path lines over an elevated view of the house in the 3D Gaussian splatting scene from PortalCam
Green capture path lines over an elevated view of the house in the 3D Gaussian splatting scene from PortalCam

The Green: A 300-Year-Old English Country House You Can Walk Through

He recorded camera paths with Flythrough in LCC Studio and exported each one as a video file. For a basic deliverable, the process can end there: "A standard flythrough can be created in XGRIDS software after data processing and exported as a video file, done."

For the three finished videos, he brought the exports into Adobe Premiere Pro and added subtitles, licensed music, and voice narration generated with ElevenLabs. Alexander has extensive experience in audio and video production, including training videos, social media content, and an audiobook, and he notes that simpler tools are available to people starting out. Editing is the stage that takes the time: "The capture is quick, but the video editing process with third-party editors can be slow depending on your experience level."

The four deliverables: three videos and an interactive 3DGS scene

All three videos draw on the same two scenes. What differs between them is the camera path, the edit, and the narration.

DeliverableMade forWhat it shows
Owner's filmProspective guests and event bookersThe house, its history, and its grounds, with the technology left out of the story
ExplainerCurious viewers and technical prospectsThe property's story first, then an introduction to spatial capture and PortalCam
Capability cutAsset owners, operators, and digital twin buyersA roughly two-minute reel that treats the house as a demanding test site
Interactive scenesAnyone with the linkThe 3DGS scenes themselves, opened in a browser and explored freely

What AGS would add to the capture

Asked what he would do differently when planning for several deliverables, Alexander listed three additions:

  • Many more still photos taken on site
  • A 3 m (about 10 ft) extension pole for the exterior passes
  • A drone photogrammetry flight where one is available, merged with the PortalCam scan for better views of the roof

The second and third both add higher viewpoints. A 3DGS scene renders most faithfully near the positions the capture covered, so a pole and aerial imagery extend how far the camera can climb in the edit, particularly over roofs and upper elevations. LCC Studio supports the drone step through Aerial-Ground Map Fusion, which combines drone imagery and ground capture into a single 3DGS scene.

His first suggestion to another dealer looking at this kind of work is to test the equipment.

How an XGRIDS dealer uses the videos in sales

The videos now feature in AGS's own sales conversations. Alexander calls them "attention grabbers" that show what a single PortalCam and one person walking through and around a structure can produce without shot planning.

Explore interactive scenes of The Green:

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