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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

#61

Post by lonelappde »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #60

The longer Apple goes without releasing their AR headset the weirder adding AR to the iPads and iPhones as some sort of developer platform test bed becomes. It's fine for developers but for end users these handheld AR experiences are so frustratingly poor, frustrating in the sense that the tracking and occlusion tech is getting really good but poor that you're experiencing the whole thing through this silly handheld…

Apple's not going to launch a consumer feature until they think it's insanely great. Until then they need developers to keep working at it.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#62

Post by gdubs »

apocalypses wrote: post #56
gdubs wrote: post #42

Ok, this is tangential but there’s a lot of people in this thread who seem to have a good knowledge of lidar: How close can you get to creating a decent topographical survey of your property with what’s available to consumers? Could you walk around with an iPad Pro and build a decent 3D model? Is there a not exorbitant drone solution?

I work at a company that does lidar SLAM. You can actually produce really high quality maps/slam with lidar/tof sensors, and it’s a lot more robust/dense than visual/imu mapping.

How does the price compare to traditional survey methods?

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#63

Post by jayd16 »

simonh wrote: post #28
jayd16 wrote: post #17

Are the demos impressive in a way I'm failing to spot? It still seems about on par with others and still has plenty of noise in the pop art chair and kitchen. I was hoping this would put the magic leap to shame but it doesn't seem much better.

They’re showing off the environment scanning capability. The visualisation system is just something they knocked together quickly with some basic APIs, so it would be a bit much to expect ML equivalence.

Hmm I suppose you're right that the mesh generation system could be hiding some of the capability of the lidar. I expected the floating, mid-air meshes seen in the kitchen demo to go away but it could be a software issue.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#64

Post by Zenst »

ModernMech wrote: post #33
Zenst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

Honestly, if there is nowt there atm, then a basic simple knocked up app to show what it can do, even very basic - pop on app store for something like a dollar or less and lap up the sales from those curious like everybody else.

As you have the device and plan on doing app stuff, I'd go for that gold rush.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#65

Post by alkonaut »

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?

Isn’t there an RF communication widget in iPhone11 too, that sounds really promising for positioning and whatnot, but still isn’t used or marketed?

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#66

Post by adamczi »

Has anyone seen specs of the Lidar sensor? I'm coming from GIS background (geography) where Lidar scanning is very often used for ground measurements and would like to compare specs with the gear I know. I couldn't find any on Apple's website and those "tech blogs" don't tell much either.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#67

Post by cossatot »

gdubs wrote: post #42

Ok, this is tangential but there’s a lot of people in this thread who seem to have a good knowledge of lidar: How close can you get to creating a decent topographical survey of your property with what’s available to consumers? Could you walk around with an iPad Pro and build a decent 3D model? Is there a not exorbitant drone solution?

In the geosciences there has been a bit of research in the past 10 years using Structure from Motion techniques on images collected from normal cameras suspended from balloons, if a drone isn't available.

Both of these papers discuss making 3D models of topography on the scale of a house and yard. You can also probably get colors mapped onto the surfaces.

(Note that I believe both use AgiSoft structure from motion software, which is probably expensive. I have no idea what the FOSS options are.)

[1]: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/10/5/...

[2]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Micklethwaite/pu...

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#68

Post by simonh »

jayd16 wrote: post #63
simonh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re showing off the environment scanning capability. The visualisation system is just something they knocked together quickly with some basic APIs, so it would be a bit much to expect ML equivalence.

Hmm I suppose you're right that the mesh generation system could be hiding some of the capability of the lidar. I expected the floating, mid-air meshes seen in the kitchen demo to go away but it could be a software issue.

I think the meshes are what the LIDAR API provides to the application.

Re: Lidar: Peek into the Future with iPad Pro

#70

Post by anchpop »

alkonaut wrote: post #65
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?

Isn’t there an RF communication widget in iPhone11 too, that sounds really promising for positioning and whatnot, but still isn’t used or marketed?

There is. They also didn't put it in the new SE for some reason. The thought it that it might be used for a future "airtags" product that you can stick in your wallet or on your keychain and your iphone helps you track it.
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