Note this is not aerial imagery shot from an aircraft with an Apple phone, this is someone with an Apple phone on their head cycling around the neighborhood and then viewing the 3d model from above.<p>No less cool, but I was rather confused for a lot of the article, wondering what in the world the range on this sensor is (usually you get a few meters on normal-priced sensors, not hundreds of meters, and the picture showed entire streets being captured). The article actually mentions the maximum range is 5 metres after you set it to low confidence.
I wrote this guide on creating orthorectified imagery using just an iPhone, using a demo on George St, Sydney!<p>Usually this is easier with drones, but there are a lot of places you can't fly drones. I hope this guide comes in helpful, especially if you're contributing to OpenStreetMap.<p>I've found you can strap an iPhone to the front of a bicycle and if you go slowly the 3D models/LiDAR point clouds are quite good (it has a 5m range). There are drift issues if you try to complete loops though.
Have you tried Scaniverse for the capture step? It does a decent job at correcting for drift and avoiding misalignments for these sorts of scans. For example:<p><a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/babakawa-urban-design-project-performance4-e5481c77ed4e4bceba1d48afad79b99a" rel="nofollow">https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/babakawa-urban-design-projec...</a><p><a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/holiday-villa-iphone-3d-scan-bcd1727b23ba468080d63d6c3f59e00b" rel="nofollow">https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/holiday-villa-iphone-3d-scan...</a><p><a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/street-art-on-rue-chapleau-montreal-2266ed5e7ebe464387e88f60cabd2ad4" rel="nofollow">https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/street-art-on-rue-chapleau-m...</a><p><a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/day-124-colored-sidewalk-in-sf-1scanaday-fbda0dcb14a74f489d80c8765907129f" rel="nofollow">https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/day-124-colored-sidewalk-in-...</a>
Ever since iPhone introduced Lidar, I've wondered why Teslas got rid of it. They said it was due to additional cost and complexity in models. Of course Waymo heavily uses Lidar but they have huge sensors they mount on cars to do so. Why is that lidar so different? What's stopping Tesla from adding the same sensors the iphone has, but all over the car and stitching it together like it does video from cameras? Is it just to do with distance? Refresh rate? Would love someone who knows this to teach me!
This is getting very close to actual field survey work and IMO the best app, by a mile, to carry out the scanning part in this kind of setting is Dot3D. It's basically been built for larger-scale capture and reliable loop-closure.<p>Here's a scan of several km (!) of length all done with Dot3D on an iPad [1]. You can also explore the point cloud on the web.<p>Also, digging a little deeper, here's a study comparing the accuracy and loop-closure capabilities of several 3D scanning apps. It's spot on. [2]<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/netch87/status/1632392369143435264" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/netch87/status/1632392369143435264</a><p>[2] <a href="https://rafaels-blog.weebly.com/blog/why-loop-closure-is-crucial-to-3d-scanning-accuracy-an-iphone-study" rel="nofollow">https://rafaels-blog.weebly.com/blog/why-loop-closure-is-cru...</a>
I recently 3D scanned an area of my property (about 250 feet long) with my iPhone in order to make a map. Polycam was the winning app (Scaniverse and SiteScape did not work as well).<p>Do not underestimate the sheer amount of walking around and aiming your phone that this technique requires. A 5m range is not much, and in some cases the effective range seems to be less than that. If you just want a to-scale image of an area, you can stop after "Capturing the model" and take a screenshot of your captured scan, but it's still a lot of work.
Super cool concept.<p>Nothing against the iPhone, but it would be neat to also have (e.g. open source or DIY electronics) projects which enabled use of lidar tech at home-user prices.<p>It's worth noting (again, without trying to be a grinch - merely trying to add to the overall picture) that there are actual dedicated lidar scanners on the retail market, of higher spec and capability, within a similar price range as the Apple devices involved here.<p>Of course, you don't get an awesome iPhone with those! :)
Looking at <a href="https://map.openaerialmap.org/#/151.20735257863998,-33.86550701678302,18/latest/640db28cc2655600066c2a44?_k=sefsq2" rel="nofollow">https://map.openaerialmap.org/#/151.20735257863998,-33.86550...</a> I'm only seeing a 2D option. Is there maybe also a 2.5D or 3D viewer?
This is very cool. Would it theoretically be possible to "open source" a Google Streetview type of thing by getting "mappers" to contribute their walks around the city, with some app taking photos / lidar? In a similar way that distributed projects like SETI split the work among lots of machines (that maybe not the best analogy~~ha!)?