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RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

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Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#61

Post by whatusername »

runjake wrote: post #25
uptown wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your laser tape translates those measurements into a floorplan that's digitally sharable?

My HOWTO: 1. Obtain laser tape, pencil, and paper. 2. Sketch out floor plan with pencil on paper in rough scale. 3. Take laser tape and take needed measurements. Annotate measurements on your rough scale paper drawing. 4. Go back to desk and open OmniGraffle (or Visio or whatever). 5. Draw up a scale floorplan, exportable into any needed, industry standard formats. 6. There is no step 6. Some variation of this HOWTO…

Here's a high-tech method that usable in a professional setting: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/melbournes-shri...

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#62

Post by uptown »

roel_v wrote: post #53
uptown wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet someone once said the same thing about the laser tape replacing traditional tape measures.

No, absolutely nobody ever said that. The only con of a laser measure is the price (compared to a foldable analog one), but apart from that (and for the purpose of measuring rooms and buildings), a laser measure is superior in every way.

"No, absolutely nobody ever said that."

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Taking_Measurements_on...

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#64

Post by jaynos »

roel_v wrote: post #6

Quite disappointed - was hoping this was done through computer vision. Aren't there are apps that do this? By the time I've 'scanned' a room the way it's shown in the article, and if that method doesn't even give me heights, doors, windows and outlets, and is only accurate to within half a foot - by that time I've measured it with my laser tape measure 3 times over.

I was a residential contractor until a few years ago. This would be great for estimating. Nice way to replace a pad of paper with less than stellar drawings on it. When estimating I'd still take pictures of the rooms to help me recall what it looked like.

For most projects a measurement to within half a foot is fine for estimating. If the total width of a room is close to 12 or 15' (standard carpet roll widths), get an exact number to know if your carpet sub needs to seam two pieces of carpet together.

Door heights are standard on most houses. Electrical heights are usually standard. Windows are usually dropped the height of a header.

For estimating many projects (painting, flooring, non-custom trim jobs), this app would be more than adequate.

When you get the job and go back to do the work, I'd suggest a Bosch LASER tape measure. Accurate to within 1/16" or better. It's great for trim work.

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#65

Post by digikata »

marcosscriven wrote: post #59
digikata wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely to be standard inertial navigation, mems sensors drift with dead reckoning integration pretty quickly, even applying more sophisticated kalman filtering may not improve things indoors without GPS (or sufficient travel for GPS even if you could receive it consistently)... But, if you were to add "room-like" assumptions it might improve things pretty well, eg. when integrating a rotation, fit it to a 90 d…

I wondered about doing something like this a while back - and it was the very quick cumulative error from double integration of acceleration data that stopped me from even trying. Clever idea getting the user to place the phone on the walls - as you say that would correct a lot of the errors. But also, as you say, unconventional room layouts get you back to square one so to speak.

I haven't played around with the latest generation of sensors, but if the time/distance error growth is small enough, maybe you can get model corrections down to the nearest 45 deg. If you can hit that threshold, you might end up fairly functional with possibly the next largest segment of non-rectangular rooms.

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#66

Post by Perseids »

roel_v wrote: post #6

Quite disappointed - was hoping this was done through computer vision. Aren't there are apps that do this? By the time I've 'scanned' a room the way it's shown in the article, and if that method doesn't even give me heights, doors, windows and outlets, and is only accurate to within half a foot - by that time I've measured it with my laser tape measure 3 times over.

What I imagine to be a real productivity boost would be a combination of both: A laser tape measure paired via blutooth to take exact measurements and an app using the accelerometer/camera for the general outline. In a best case scenario the app could even locate the laser tape measure to detect which measurement is taken.

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#67

Post by deveac »

radley wrote: post #58
onedognight wrote: post #26

Here's an alternative with a more interactive work flow: http://magic-plan.com/ .

Tried it. More bells but difficult to make accurate. Hard to use if you can't see the floor corners of a room or if dealing with short narrow spaces.

As did I, quite some time ago. I found it did a poor job with rooms that had actual stuff in them, -particularly the corners. Seemed cool but I discarded it as an option even without an alternative. RoomScan has been making its way around the blogs and I tried it out the other day. It did a great job of capturing my non-rectangular kitchen (after I failed at my first attempt by ignoring the instructions to touch each wall, then the 1st and 2nd wall once more, then ending). Roomscan > for spaces with stuff and/or narrow spaces, or Magic-Plan > for empty spaces more wide open was basically my experience.

Easy enough to try both though.

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#68

Post by easy_rider »

I got a lot more excited when I read about this a while ago (2012) [1]. It also states to be slightly more accurate. It also seems less cumbersome.

[1] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/126843-think-gps-is-cool-...

I haven't tried anything, but it seems there are already lots of solutions and this is just another approach.

Re: RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

#70

Post by poslathian »

roel_v wrote: post #6

Quite disappointed - was hoping this was done through computer vision. Aren't there are apps that do this? By the time I've 'scanned' a room the way it's shown in the article, and if that method doesn't even give me heights, doors, windows and outlets, and is only accurate to within half a foot - by that time I've measured it with my laser tape measure 3 times over.

Very nearly. Google's project Tango. After you are finished oogling at real time SLAM using vision running on a phone, I invite you to check out Google's Project Ara. Both were spawned from Motorola ATAP - post google aquisition - and retained by Google after the sale to Lenovo.
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