Lidar apps

[Terri]

I'm just got an iPhone 15 Pro so that I can use Lidar for my residential landscape designs. Which apps work with Vectorworks? Thanks!

[zoomer]

VW's iOS/iPadOS (or Android) App is called Vectorworks Nomad.

 

And there are some Videos about workflows with VW and Nomad

at VW University or Youtube.

[Claes Lundstrom]

7 hours ago, Terri said:

I'm just got an iPhone 15 Pro so that I can use Lidar for my residential landscape designs. Which apps work with Vectorworks? Thanks!

Scaniverse is free app to start with if you want to experiment. It exports several formats that can be used with VW, both for mixing scans and CAD elements as well as processing with the terrain modeller points. It also exports USDZ models that can be seen in Apples' Preview app as well as augmented reality on the iPhone or iPad with no installation needed. Expect an accuracy at about 0.5%. The example is about 180 s q m and took about ten minutes to scan in one session.

[mike m oz]

Claes, how does that compare quality wise to Nomad?

[Tom W.]

5 hours ago, mike m oz said:

Claes, how does that compare quality wise to Nomad?

 

With Scaniverse, you scan your objects then choose whether you want to export as PLY, LAS or OBJ i.e. as a point cloud or a mesh. Claes is exporting as mesh. With Nomad, you can only create a mesh by using 'Generate 3D models from photos' so to do what Claes is doing you really need to use Scaniverse.

 

As far as point clouds go however, when I tested it Nomad gave me more points for the same scan than Scaniverse did so I guess that means Nomad produces a better quality point cloud.

[Claes Lundstrom]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

 

With Scaniverse, you scan your objects then choose whether you want to export as PLY, LAS or OBJ i.e. as a point cloud or a mesh. Claes is exporting as mesh. With Nomad, you can only create a mesh by using 'Generate 3D models from photos' so to do what Claes is doing you really need to use Scaniverse.

 

As far as point clouds go however, when I tested it Nomad gave me more points for the same scan than Scaniverse did so I guess that means Nomad produces a better quality point cloud.

 

Have you tried turning off simplifications in Scaniverse ? It may generate more points. Not sure more points necessarily means better result though. Simplify can also remove irrelevant stuff and make the files smaller. One limitation with lidar is that it only sees up to 5 meters, so there is an edge for photogrammetry in areas where you can't physically go a given point within the range. I have tried a few other apps that generates more points but I'm not sure it added much in quality. Generally speaking, I wish there was an efficient method to extract edges, as a few edge points is often better as a base for modeling. This applies to most of these apps regardless of method. 

[Tom W.]

2 hours ago, Claes Lundstrom said:

 

Have you tried turning off simplifications in Scaniverse ? It may generate more points. Not sure more points necessarily means better result though. Simplify can also remove irrelevant stuff and make the files smaller. One limitation with lidar is that it only sees up to 5 meters, so there is an edge for photogrammetry in areas where you can't physically go a given point within the range. I have tried a few other apps that generates more points but I'm not sure it added much in quality.

 

No I haven't tried that + I think you're probably right about the number of points. It was more just an observation: that in my case the same room scanned with Scaniverse resulted in 500,000 points whilst with Nomad it was 2,000,000 points... To be honest, the point clouds I have taken with my iPad - whether using Nomad or Scaniverse - have been of limited use compared to professionally produced point clouds. One room I scanned last week was out by 100mm (room dims 4.5m x 2.5m)! Not sure why... But I will keep experimenting, including trying Scaniverse again...

[Claes Lundstrom]

4 hours ago, Tom W. said:

 

No I haven't tried that + I think you're probably right about the number of points. It was more just an observation: that in my case the same room scanned with Scaniverse resulted in 500,000 points whilst with Nomad it was 2,000,000 points... To be honest, the point clouds I have taken with my iPad - whether using Nomad or Scaniverse - have been of limited use compared to professionally produced point clouds. One room I scanned last week was out by 100mm (room dims 4.5m x 2.5m)! Not sure why... But I will keep experimenting, including trying Scaniverse again...

Here is a small test on a similar room size. As you say, you can't order a prefabricated kitchen based on these scans, but I have found it useful in many ways, for making quick estimates on floor and wall areas etc, and you get a lot of details you risk missing by just measuring manually and using photos. The error margin in this case is just over 1 % compared to measurements using a Leica laser. I used the trick of just scanning the roof, as lots of for example furniture tends to mess it up, and of course hoping that the walls are fairly vertical. I also used the clip cube to trim off the edges in the corners, where scanners tend to create a "worn soap effect" (rounding off the corners), which makes it difficult to extract the true wall surface. I guess a few such basic measurements can extract a calibration factor the you can use on the dimensions used.