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Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

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Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#31

Post by crazygringo »

rootusrootus wrote: post #24
oefrha wrote: post #22

Unfortunately for someone like me who’s not enthusiastic about photography at all and takes maybe a dozen photos a year, every time I buy a new iPhone or in this case an iPad Pro I feel like I’m wasting hundreds of bucks on a camera I’m not really gonna take advantage of.

They could delete the camera and related sensors and it would not appreciably affect the price of the tablet. The camera is probably something like 5 bucks in quantity, and I doubt the "LIDAR" sensor is particularly expensive either.

Actually that's not true -- some quick searching reveals iPhone cameras cost $30-50, generally about 10% of the total BOM. Which means that for a ~$1,000 tablet, it would be ~$900 if it didn't have cameras.

So it's not doubling it or anything... but it's not nothing.

(On the other hand, the vastly lower-quality webcam cameras built into Macbooks are probably closer to the $5 you're suggesting.)

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#33

Post by ModernMech »

Zenst wrote: post #18
ModernMech wrote: post #10

I just got one of these and it's very strange to me Apple did not include any apps on the iPad itself that demonstrates the Lidar hardware. They go to all of the trouble of putting it in there, and then when you turn it on and it's as if it doesn't even exist. Why not just include an app that allows me to play with the data stream?

A a previous comment called it - chicken and egg situation. But at least we have the chicken, so the eggs will come. Though for nothing built in to use or avail in any way this tech, sure does seem a bit surprising, though now the HW is there, they will certainly have the software eventually. The cynic in me says that Apple will wait for some wonder app and then buy or copy it. I say cynic as there have been a few in…

I mean, the whole reason I bought it was to use it to make neat apps so I guess they figured that's what everyone would do. But even with something like the Kinect, Microsoft provided a suite of apps that at least demoed the apis and allowed you to look at the raw sensor data. Nothing like that is even available on the app store as far as I can tell. Apple even demoed a number of apps using it (some anatomy app, a home scanning app, some AR game with lava), but you can't even download those.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#34

Post by abakker »

bane wrote: post #15
Someone1234 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How common are those? I've looked at a lot of properties and am yet to run across a 3D scan, but it may be very location dependent/value of property.

Very common in my area. When we just put our previous home up for rent, the agent had somebody come in, scan and photo the house and it was up the next day with virtual 3d walkthroughs and everything. We kinda couldn't believe they would do that just for a rental.

Side effect - these become documents of record if you damage/modify a rental property.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#37

Post by imposterr »

_asrm wrote: post #2

... the name LIDAR is a play on RADAR, but instead of using dangerous RAdio waves, it uses infrared light. hmmm...

For people downvoting this, this is actually a quote from the article. I'm honestly curious if this was serious, or a joke that went over my head.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#38

Post by Fission »

bochoh wrote: post #3

I would be curious to know if this could be used (with a heavy dose of software and a rotating mount) to replace a Matterport scanner for real estate agents. That would be a $2495-$3995 cost for device, a fixed cost of $19-$29 per house walkthrough and a $49-$149/mo hosting fee. Seems like a boatload of cash could be made for a first-to-market product here.

100%. You won't even need any extra hardware to accomplish that.

However, I would encourage anyone going this route to think closely about the incentive structures behind the product they're building, and validate them with real estate agents, photographers, and sellers. It's a lot more complicated than what many of us may give it credit for.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#39

Post by snazz »

crazygringo wrote: post #31
rootusrootus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could delete the camera and related sensors and it would not appreciably affect the price of the tablet. The camera is probably something like 5 bucks in quantity, and I doubt the "LIDAR" sensor is particularly expensive either.

Actually that's not true -- some quick searching reveals iPhone cameras cost $30-50, generally about 10% of the total BOM. Which means that for a ~$1,000 tablet, it would be ~$900 if it didn't have cameras. So it's not doubling it or anything... but it's not nothing. (On the other hand, the vastly lower-quality webcam cameras built into Macbooks are probably closer to the $5 you're suggesting.)

The iPad cameras in this article are significantly lower-quality than iPhone cameras, other than the LiDAR sensor. So it's definitely cheaper than the larger sensors and optics in new iPhones.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#40

Post by xoa »

Someone1234 wrote: post #9

I think LIDAR could be very cool but as the article alludes it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develop, and you need the software to justify having the hardware. Sounds like even the API isn't on-tap quite yet. It would definitely be cool if you could e.g. walk around a room and scan it into a home re-modelling app. I know the stated aim is more AR, and that'…

>it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develop, and you need the software to justify having the hardware.

Although it's worth pointing out that the "Chicken & Egg" problem actually has a real life answer that applies equally to a lot of scenarios it's posited. In terms of "which came first" the answer is definitively eggs, with macrolecithal eggs and birds themselves evolving from dinosaurs and other previous ancestors. Evolution sees use of "existing hardware" which then undergoes incremental change, competitive ones of which are kept.

Similarly, in a developed platform you don't actually need software to justify incremental advances in hardware. The justification for the hardware is all the other already useful stuff it does and has inherited from previous generations. Apple, and other established platform companies, can get away with bootstrapping from the hardware side that way. Just as with other evolutionary processes sometimes there are even things that just fail to stick (like Force Touch) for better or worse, but even dead ends don't kill the whole platform. I guess it's also kind of another side of a certain degree of dominating market power. Often it's used for ill, but sometimes certain kinds of monopolies and lock-in can also give companies more freedom to experiment and look for longer term gains even if it's not justified in the next few quarters.

At any rate work got a few of these and it wasn't for LIDAR at all, wouldn't change the value if it never did anything. Except for an odd network issue I'm working through they're nice upgrades from previous iPad Pros so far. But from this demo LIDAR certainly could be put to real use in some architectural brainstorming for example, so happy to see it there.

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