The Best Apps for Scanning 3D Objects with Your Phone
CREDIT: Polycam
August 13, 2021
One of the most exciting ways to use LiDAR is scanning objects around you and creating 3D models out of them. Here are the best apps for scanning objects with your phone.
LiDAR is a technology that has been around since the '60s. It stands for Light Detection and Ranging, and it's a sensor that is capable of measuring the amount of time laser light takes to hit an object and bounce back.
This creates a real-time depth map of objects in your surrounding area. Originally used for military purposes and satellite tracking, LiDAR sensors have been rolling out in select handheld devices over the last few years. Starting with the iPad Pro, and now included in the iPhone 12 Pro as well, the benefits of LiDAR are numerous for augmented reality applications and camera-related functions as well.
However, for VFX and CG artists, there is a whole world that is slowly being unlocked. The world of scanning objects with your phone.
If you want to find yourself utterly obsessed with scanning everything you see that looks even remotely interesting, go ahead and get yourself a LiDAR-equipped phone. You'll soon be scanning everything from your own head to every single room or shop you walk into.
As you start to play with these various scanning apps, you'll find that they aren't all created equal. The apps are numerous, and they all offer very different levels of detail, processing time, and overall usability.
In this article, I'll try and parse through all the ones I've used and give you the rundown on which ones I like.
Polycam is probably the most polished of the apps that I use. I think the way that it provides visual feedback as you record your scan is the most effective. It also gives you a visual representation of the scan and where it placed the various camera samples as it records. You can see all of this information before you move to the step of fully processing whatever you're capturing.
Polycam shines less when you're grabbing a scan of a larger object or space, but more if you're focusing mostly on one specific area (like the large statue in the video example above).
Scaniverse is easily my personal favorite and most used of all of these apps. It's the most useful phone scanner as of right now for quickly creating interiors. Particularly interiors that aren't the main feature of the scene (a window in the background, a storefront, etc.). Scaniverse is air-tight with these types of scans. For smaller objects, I'd still go with Polycam for the most part.
With Scaniverse, you can scan a whole room in no time at all, and potentially finish it before anyone starts to look at you weird. With Scaniverse, I've built a small library of gas stations, stores, and my friend's apartments in no time. I love dropping those in behind a window or out of focus in the background.