Turning iPad Pro Into a Real-Time LIDAR Scanner

John Stalbaum, Elliott Spelman, and Chris Heinrich have recently released an app called Polycam. The tool lets users turn new Apple Pro tablets into budget LIDAR scanners.

Polycam uses the LIDAR sensor in the new iPad Pro to capture textured 3D scans of objects or environments when you walk around them, and it generates meshes in real-time.

The generated geometry is said to be “generally accurate down to about one inch”. The app allows processing to be done locally on the tablet, and single-room captures take “only seconds to process”.

The toolkit also allows exporting 3D scans to DCC applications or game engines using a number of standard file formats (OBJ, STL, glTF, and USDZ).

Polycam is now available for iOS 13.4+ for free. In order to export the geometry to other apps, you need to make a one-time in-app payment of $9.99.