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iPhone LiDAR Apps
Posted by gene-kooper on March 28, 2022 at 2:30 pmI am looking for an app for the LiDAR feature on the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
I’ve been asked to conduct a full control survey of a mine northwest of South Park. A couple of weeks ago someone did a scan of a portion of the mine that I had surveyed before. Things didn’t match very well to my control survey. The main reason for the mismatch seems to be caused by poor positioning information.
During my control survey I thought I might improve the point cloud registration by limiting the scans of the mine to areas near each control station. That way the scans between survey stations could be warped to fit the control stations.
Any recommendations on an app for this type of application?
d0nny replied 2 years ago 9 Members · 13 Replies- 13 Replies
I would not expect a $1500 IPhone Lidar scanner to be anywhere near as accurate as $70k Leica/Trimble/Faro survey grade Lidar scanner.
Why do you think the IPhone is capable?
Use an Iphone to call or text somebody. Forget the rest.
I think it will work just fine for certain applications. Just like any surveying tools, check and double check redundancies for chosen level of confidence.
OK, who’s got the datasheet for that LiDAR unit in the iPhone?
Without some indication of what that exact unit is capable of I would be extremely leery of using it for anything other than…whatever it is people use it for, I don’t really know because:
Posted by: @beuckieUse an Iphone to call or text somebody. Forget the rest.
Took the words right out of my mouth…
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil PostmanFound this in a Google search. Better for close objects like a chair.
“LiDAR point cloud of the entire cliff is -0.11 m (std. dev.??=??0.68, RMS??=??0.69). M3C2 shows that for 80% of all points the maximum distance between the SfM MVS and the iPhone point cloud is smaller than 15 cm and for 92% smaller than 30 cm”
According to Evaluation of the Apple iPhone 12 Pro LiDAR for an Application in Geosciences
@leegreen cool. From your link:
Abstract
Traditionally, topographic surveying in earth sciences requires high financial investments, elaborate logistics, complicated training of staff and extensive data processing. Recently, off-the-shelf drones with optical sensors already reduced the costs for obtaining a high-resolution dataset of an Earth surface considerably. Nevertheless, costs and complexity associated with topographic surveying are still high. In 2020, Apple Inc. released the iPad Pro 2020 and the iPhone 12 Pro with novel build-in LiDAR sensors. Here we investigate the basic technical capabilities of the LiDAR sensors and we test the application at a coastal cliff in Denmark. The results are compared to state-of-the-art Structure from Motion Multi-View Stereo (SfM MVS) point clouds. The LiDAR sensors create accurate high-resolution models of small objects with a side length??>??10 cm with an absolute accuracy of???ñ??1 cm. 3D models with the dimensions of up to 130??????15??????10 m of a coastal cliff with an absolute accuracy of???ñ??10 cm are compiled. Overall, the versatility in handling outweighs the range limitations, making the Apple LiDAR devices cost-effective alternatives to established techniques in remote sensing with possible fields of application for a wide range of geo-scientific areas and teaching.
I watched this this weekend for some reason. I thought it was interesting.
I don’t know how much the vrs device is, though, I think you have to have a cloud account with them and have no idea how much you could actually run in a single project as it stores (?) thousands of fairly high res photos to ortho rectify, It wouldn’t do well with any kind of ground cover and my first thought (that I didn’t comment) was “so 1″+/- horizontally and a little more vertically is good RTK?” I suppose it would be, in the right situation, and I do admit this could save a lot of time. But personally I might just figure out how to use the S6 scanning capabilities and see what kind of product that generates.
ddMy commentary I posted on that video.
Update – Sorry. My bad. This refers to the earlier video that was bounced all over the place comparing a TS with the iPhone. I haven’t seen this one.
The LiDAR sensor can actually do a fair few useful things, and works well as a SLAM LiDAR unit, so long as you respect its limitations.
But this video is still garbage, and is going to confuse/misinform a whole bunch of people.
This video is portrayed as a test of the accuracy of the iPhone’s LiDAR. However, the example chosen, the technique chosen, and the conclusions implied in the video are very poorly considered.
Let’s look at a few issues:
The iPhone’s SLAM LiDAR is sensitive to the surroundings, particularly low texture and low detail surroundings. This means that the environment being scanned with the phone has to be accounted for when considering using the iPhone.
The iPhone’s LiDAR is relatively low resolution and of limited range (0.3 to 5m). The low resolution in particular has a strong impact on what it can and can’t pickup. Sharp corners and fine details tend to be missed or rounded.
A huge concern for using the iPhone, is whether or not it can sustain accuracy over longer distances. e.g., SLAM runs along the side of a building or similar features.
The comparison is done between 6 points, over a tiny area. That is nowhere near enough data to try and quantify the accuracy. Especially when none of the above points have been considered.
The baseline data – total station (good), full height prism (bad), kerb points (bad). There’s already so much slop in the baseline data that we can’t reasonably gauge the iPhone’s accuracy (not that it matters, see below).
Now, for the really big issue. Watch the video, listen to the tone, the excitement and the impression that you’re left with is that the iPhone LiDAR is amazing and very capable compared to a total station.
Now, look at the actual numbers. His comparison datasets have a spread of differences of ~0.15m in Easting, 0.21m in Northing, and .05m in height, for a piece of kerb that’s only 5ft (1.5m) long. Those results are terrible, and the iPhone can do better than that, so I do wonder about his technique and whether he’s actually managed to identify the right points in the cloud. However, very few people are actually going to pull apart the numbers to check his work. Just look at the comments on the youtube video.So, between the lack of context that is required to understand when and where the iPhone LiDAR is useful, the poor technique in the comparison, and the youtube-esque hype, I find this video to be very uninformative. It makes a lot of sense if the purpose of the video is for clicks, rather than for informed advice. The end result is that we now have a bunch of people wandering around posting terrible advice about using iPhones for “survey”.
I’ve used my iPhone LiDAR (in conjunction with typical survey methods) to scan certain areas where I don’t need high precision, just good mapping. I’m currently experimenting taking scanning the footprint of structures, combined with a handful of exterior corner shots and conventional taping, I’m very easily able to draw up all of nooks, crannies, jogs, and angles found in so many new homes. So far under a couple tenths in most cases. The app I’m using is able to export a floorplan in DXF straight in to Autocad. It’s noisy, but truthed with other data I’m getting good results.
I’ve also used it in feature dense areas, like behind a business or apartment building, heaps of AC units, gas and electric meters, other infrastructure. Very easy to make sure nothing was missed.
- Posted by: @tfdoubleyou
The app I’m using is able to export a floorplan in DXF straight in to Autocad. It’s noisy, but truthed with other data I’m getting good results.
I’d be interested in seeing what app you’re using to export into a DXF. If you prefer to not publicly say what the app is, please send me a PM. Thx.
And thanks to the others that posted to this thread. I will post some of my tests on its utility after I complete the control survey at the mine.
The app name in the app store is “3D Scanner App”. It fairly simple to use, has many export options, and is free.
@tfdoubleyou Will have to check out. Have a 12 Pro and the default measure app really doesn’t do it for me in some situations. It might be quick for measuring the rough height of a ceiling to list on a FEMA cert, but I feel like it’s struggled where I’ve wanted it to give me a pipe size in a drainage/sewer structure with fluid.
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