Thursday, November 10, 2016
You can now scan and measure your entire home with an iPad attachment
The Verge: Augmented reality startup Occipital first burst on the scene in 2013 with a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Structure Sensor — a strip of cameras and sensors you strap to your iPad that can be used to scan, measure, and project things into the world around you. Today the company is pushing that tech forward by releasing its first iOS app called Canvas. It’s an app that is capable of capturing and processing 3D scans of entire rooms, and it will even let you take accurate measurements inside that scan. Think of it like digital measuring tape, only more powerful.
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I am continually awed everyday by the advancement in technology happening around us. With every morning I wake up I swear that it is a new app or a new robot or a better way to do something that is popping up on my news feed. I do truly believe that we are in the midst of a technological revolution. This Ipad attachment is an example of just that. Not only is this device a technological miracle but it will also be such a useful tool for so many people. Imagine all the different career paths that this device could assist in: architecture, landscaping, surveying, event planning and even theatre design. The opportunities are endless. This may even help home owners by making repairs and additions to their homes so much easier to be done by hand. I am glad that despite everything going on I can wake up each morning and see advancements like this one on my phone (an incredible device on it's own.)
This is kind of incredible. I've always dreamt about three dimensional scanning, particularly when I was younger and was always thrown off by the archaic-feeling usage of certain kinds of scans and impressions in the dental and orthodontal industries. I was always terrified of the impressions that had to be done for braces and retainers when I was younger, and would fantasize about a world in which an orthodontist could use a three dimensional scanner to bypass the rather uncomfortable process of having a giant mold put into your mouth. This is just one fear-filled idea of an application for this kind of scanning, but there are definitely countless others, including the home scanning that this article mentioned. It's been interesting to see augmented reality technology develop in a way that is providing us with these new, incredible technologies that are somewhat defying the idea that we have reached a technological peak. It seems to me that there is no peak, and that we are continuing to innovate in ways that are going to continually change our socio-cultural landscapes at the rapid pace that they have been over the last two decades.
This invention is honestly mind boggling. The uses for this type of technology are incalculable. The video in the article mentioned real estates and contractors using the app for their work but it could be so useful for professional designers and average homeowners. And there's the obvious convenience it could add to CAD and 3D modeling. Over the summer I decided to 3D draft my room in Vectorworks to learn more about the software and ended up measuring and remeasuring my room like a mad man at 3am in desperation to finish this project. If that personal project had been an actual assignment the price tag on this app and the hardware would almost be worth it. It's also humbling to remember the great work technicians and scientists are accomplishing across the world and how the arts can work together with innovators to apply new technology.
A few weeks ago, I got to try out Microsoft’s Hololens, a holographic headset that augments your reality with various holograms. The underlying technology in Occipital’s product actually largely reminds me of that of the Hololens, as they both scan their surroundings in a similar way (Hololens’ can recognize furniture and landmarks within a room, as there exist augmented reality games where holograms will interact with their surroundings by doing things like sitting on a couch in a room to make them more realistic to the players). So, the displays of Occipital’s product are similar in that regard. However, Occipital is more specific than the Hololens since it works to get the exact dimensions of the room, whereas the Hololens simply identified landmarks. This is why I wonder how all the models from Occipital are “exactly perfect” when there is furniture in the rooms that block off the walls, therefore impeding the camera and software’s ability to use computer vision to examine the surroundings. Thus, is the product only allowed to be used in empty rooms? They never specify. I definitely see the merit in what they do and it also reminds me a lot of a startup that I work for that uses drones to perform aerial mapping on construction job sites. However, the drones are automated, making me wonder if Occipital can also do something to automate their software instead of leaving a door open for human error (since a human has to hold the camera in order to scan rooms, etc.). As a final note, I don’t think an iPad is a good choice of console for this product. Another startup that I worked for had a product that was solely on the iPad and they had a very hard time selling their product because their customer base was very limited. It is still very exciting that startups are using technology and computer vision/processing to do so much in the modern day, though.
This is absolutely crazy. As I know little about programming, I can't say I understand in even the slightest how this could work, but the idea that an app can give you not just basic, rough measurements, but fairly precise ones, is absolutely unheard of and amazing. While I'm sure it's not perfect--with odd shaped rooms, discrepancies and different variations I'm sure it has some issues, but as a whole the idea of a product that is this powerful (and reasonably priced) on the market today is amazing. Sure, I wouldn't trust it for precise measurements, or for a renovation project, but for getting basic sizes of rooms it would be amazing and would speed up any project, especially in the basic stages. I hope products and apps like these continue to be developed, as the technology would be amazing in almost any field today.
This app and add on is amazing. I really wish I could've had this when my mom and I remodeled this summer. And I’m just a random person making some changes to a room- this app is going to make so make so many contractor’s jobs easier and more accurate. One of the biggest hurdles to get over when you're remodeling or even just changing around a room is the confidence that what you want to do will work and will look good. And this app makes it so easy to make your room virtual. At first I was a little under impressed by the quality of the 3D scan, to be fair this is new technology, but you can scan your 3D image into a CAD file so you can edit your room and look at it in an even more accurate way. I am really impressed with this technology and how accessible they have made it. If this is your job or you have significant changes you want to make, the $400 is completely worth it.
Just looking at the screen capture that they displayed for their scanning tech, im not sure that I would be ready to spend $400 on this thing for an iPad. If there was a good option for this kind of tech, I would be really interested in getting one, even if I wasn’t using it for contracting and interior design. It seems to me that if their market is for people who are doing interior design for residential construction, they would be well served making their program a few levels dumber. Rather than having their program try and create coherent 3D models of the whole room, could they not abstract it into walls, floors, ceilings, furniture and fixtures. In then end, I could care less about having a couple hundred thousand data points on a flat wall, if I could know where the outline of the wall is.
Personally, as much as I like what they’re doing to advance this field I don’t see myself using this or a product like it anytime soon, either professionally or for myself. If I’m doing a project in my own home then a tape measure will work just fine, or if I’m doing something big enough I’ll go dig up the architectural drawings and take measurements off those, either way I don’t need a 3D model and I can get the information this app would give me faster myself. If I’m doing something professionally, say for an architecture firm or design firm, and need a 3D model then chances are I already have access to the drawings that were used to make the room/building and I can use those to make a 3D model. Will that take longer than scanning the room? Probably, but it won’t take longer than scanning the room, sending that file to the company waiting for them to convert it to a cad file, sending it back to me, and then me making a new 3D model that looks nicer and more true to life. All in all I think its great that this company has created an app and product that can make accurate models like this. But I think it has a long way to go before it sees widespread adoption in the industries their targeting.
WOW this is just amazing. It's like something that people have been having random crazy ideas and can only fake in films finally come to life. I still remember another article talking about a scanner that can scan your body and produce a million measurements that you are not even prepared to know. That scanner is a blessing for costume fittings. And this canvas 3D scanner has even wider application to numerous fields. I jus wish we had it the other day when our group went to measure the shop and all the tool tables and machines. However, I do wonder if the scanner can only capture the measurement of the overall space accurately or does it also automatically measures everything in the room like sofas, lamps or tool tables? I can imagine those little stuff may be hard to be captured precisely by only scanning it one way. Maybe you need to scan the items individually and in some way combine all the files?
The easy conversion to CAD graph is also amazing because I was just thinking about that before I watched to that part. I wondered whether it would be that useful with only the pretty sketchy modeling. But it translates into CAD in a blink of an eye, which makes it even more easily applicable to all kinds of fields.
The price is not at all scary for a ground-breaking tool like this, and it will only go down once it breaks into the market. While I do understand hand measuring is not replaceable in face of a new high-tech gadget, just like hand drawing will always keep on existing even with all the auto drawing inventions (like SprayPrinter), I already start to picture canvas being a standard equipment for engineers, TDs, carpenters, etc, in the near future.
The advent of 3d scanning and 3d printing technology is incredible. I remember reading something in 2009 or so in the National Geographic magazine about Archeologists using 3D mapping to preserve the shape of of an aztec pyramid or something like that. The memory is hazy but hwat I remembered was the awe I felt at the technology being used. I also remember seeing a video on the Tested youtube channel, Adam Savage's new thing after mythbusters, where they showed off another kind of 3D scanning technology that could fit onto your phone. That product was so precise that it could in fact model small action figures and faces and the like. The possibilities are endless, all of this making turnaround time between concept and prototyping that much shorter, that much more efficient.
I do think that there are some limitations to the program, namely the turnaround time for point-cloud to CAD drawing conversion. I just seems like they're having a dude sit down, take all the measurements and draw. This seems like something that could be done vie a software, especially with all the work being done via Neural Nets, so much more efficiently.
I remember that only two years ago we were scanning rooms on iPhones, and it was never terribly accurate, and now we can scan a room using the camera and gain a 3D model from that; I must say that is kind of cool. The fact that this software is available now and people can take advantage of it is amazing. I am very interested to see not only how the architectural industry uses the platform but also the theater industry. We had a student here at CMU school of Drama update all the drawings for one of our theater spaces, and I don’t even want to know how long that took him. But with this software you can continually add to the rendering allowing for better accuracy. I guess one question that I would have is pricing. Being that it is in such early stages of development I can only image the cost of this item then on top of that the cost for “send to CAD.” All in all a very cool idea and concept and I look forward to learning more.
This seems like really cool technology! I can’t imagine how helpful this will be for interior designers and carpenters. It is amazing what we can accomplish with just an iPad. I would be really interested in learning more about how this technology works. Does it work best in a clean, organized room? How accurate can the measurements get? Also, one thing I noticed when watching the video it that it takes two days to convert it to an AutoCAD file. I’m sure that really isn’t too long of a time for most businesses, but it would be something that they could look into to make that time shorter. It also seems rather expensive, at $400 per iPad/equipment. The benefits probably outweigh the cost for most businesses, but it would be nice if the price were more available for everyday, individual people. It really is amazing to see what technology can accomplish!
This app is absolutely amazing. I wish someone had thought of something like this sooner. This will be incredibly helpful for people who loves doing home projects, simply making their lives easier. This would also be useful in technical theatre. If it can project things, it would be a really good way to test the image you are wanting on the material you will be using. Instead of having to pull out your whole projector, you can just set up your iPad and go from there. This will also be helpful for scenic designers when it comes time to place things on stage. While this could easily be done with a tape measure, it would still be really fun to try it with the app. I would also want to double check everything after just in case there was glitch and the app gave me the wrong information. I also like the point they bring up when measuring furniture in stores. It would be easier to bring your iPad along and use the measuring app, because now you also have a place to put notes, and it's all in one place. This app seems like it would be really useful if it is accurate.
I really like the idea of this app as it would make 3D modeling rooms an absolute breeze. As i was watching the video, ideas kept popping into my head about projects i could do with this, and considering my lack of knowledge about cad, it would be useful for me to have a rendering of the space in 48 hours, considerably less time than it would currently take me to do so. I dont think it would be much help with what we do here at CMU as we generally go the other way, autocad to physical construction, and rather than spaces, we often have sets that are simply viewed from one side. Overall a great idea and tool for someone doing interior design or renovations, however it is a fairly limited application, and the price itself would, in general, deter my personal use of it.
I really like the idea of this app as it would make 3D modeling rooms an absolute breeze. As i was watching the video, ideas kept popping into my head about projects i could do with this, and considering my lack of knowledge about cad, it would be useful for me to have a rendering of the space in 48 hours, considerably less time than it would currently take me to do so. I dont think it would be much help with what we do here at CMU as we generally go the other way, autocad to physical construction, and rather than spaces, we often have sets that are simply viewed from one side. Overall a great idea and tool for someone doing interior design or renovations, however it is a fairly limited application, and the price itself would, in general, deter my personal use of it.
This is unbelievable. I am trying to grasp all the applications for this all at once. First of all, this program could be used to scan theaters that touring productions are coming through to give perfect drafts of the theater in an accessible format. I wonder if this could be used on model boxes and converted to different scales to begin the first steps of drafting a set, This could also be a good tool to easily archive sets in 3d models without referencing 2d drafts. I want to know what the tolerance. How accurate can a tool like this be in early stages of development? Im excited to see where this technology can take us to make drafting faster, easier, and more efficient.
I think the concepts here are really neat, but I am definitely a skeptic of this type of technology. If it were to work 100% as advertised, it would be an amazing step forward to site surveys and modeling existing site conditions. However, I just find it really hard to believe that you can get serviceable 3d models and CAD drawings out of an Ipad. Perhaps the measurements that you can grab from inside the app are good enough interior design or sketching the concepts of a remodeling project, but for actual construction, I doubt that anything like this will replace traditional measuring techniques.
Where I think this technology could be very helpful is with creating concept renderings of modifications to existing spaces. The 3d models that are produced are likely accurate enough for concept level stuff, where everything is more about the proportions and relationships to each other, rather than exact measurements.
This is an interesting and exciting piece of technology. I can see this being used for site surveys for riggers, advance teams, and companies like ZFX that do performer flying. I’d like to know exactly how the technology works because it seems like one would have to hold their iPad incredibly still otherwise the distance between the camera and object will change, hence the measurement. Perhaps the technology has increased to recognize the objects and understand that the distance has changed. I imagine this technology would have come in handy when looking into turning the cluster into an undergraduate design studio. This is the kind of product where I’m sure it works, but I wouldn’t believe it until I tried it myself. One of the drawbacks, it seems like, is that it measures everything that it sees, even if all you wanted was four walls, the floor and ceiling. I suppose if one were measuring by hand, you’d have to move furniture out of the way as needed to get certain measurements. I’d love to try this, but I’d need an iPad first.
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