The 6 Best LiDAR Apps and Games For iPhone12 and iPhone13

The first time I saw the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology at work was ten years ago. I needed a render farm for the 3D animation I was working on, so I asked an acquaintance who worked in the gaming industry to render my thing on his company’s render farm. He generously accepted, and I went there with my portable hard drive. They had just received a new 3D scanner, so he asked if I wanted to see how pro 3D scanning looks. He scanned me with the handheld device connected to a powerful computer, and I appeared as a glorious 3D model on the screen next to us. This device cost around $10k back then, but I was so impressed with the speed and resolution.

What is Lidar

The Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the 2020 iPad Pro measure distance more accurately to map out three-dimensional spaces. This feature comes in handy when shooting photos at night, but it also plays a role in various mobile apps.

Look closely at one of the new iPhone 12 Pro models or the most recent iPad Pro, and you’ll see a little black dot near the camera lenses, about the same size as the flash. That’s the lidar sensor, and it’s a new type of depth-sensing that could make a difference in many exciting ways.

Lidar is a type of time-of-flight camera. Some other smartphones measure depth with a single light pulse. In contrast, a smartphone with this type of lidar tech sends waves of light pulses out in a spray of infrared dots and can measure each one with its sensor, creating a field of points that map out distances and can “mesh” the dimensions of space and the objects in it. The light pulses are invisible to the human eye, but you could see them with a night vision camera.

Lidar can be used to mesh 3D objects and rooms and lay photo imagery on top, a technique called photogrammetry. The ability to capture 3D data and share that info with others could make 3D-content capture tools out of these lidar-equipped phones and tablets. Lidar could also be used without the camera element to acquire measurements for objects and spaces.

The lidar sensors on the iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro that work at a range of up to 5 meters are enough to reach across most rooms in my house, but it takes more moving around in bigger outdoor spaces.

And now, without further ado, here are the top apps and games that utilize lidar scanning capabilities.

6. Measure

Apple’s free Measure app is included on the iPhone and iPad as a virtual alternative to a physical ruler, tape measure, and spirit level. You can measure the distance between two points, determine the dimensions of an object, and even check if a surface is straight.

When the Measure app detects a person in the viewfinder, it automatically measures their height from the ground to the top of their head, hat, or hair.

5. 3D Scanner App

With the free 3D Scanner app, you can scan any object or scene to create a three-dimensional image of it on your device. To start, position your iPhone or iPad in front of the object you want to capture and tap the Shutter button. Move your device around the object to generate an image, then tap the Shutter button again when you’re done to create the 3D object.

By default, the scan is created in low resolution, but you can switch to high resolution to better control the image’s quality. Afterward, you can tweak the scan to refine, smooth, or simplify details. You can also measure the distance between any two points in the scan and share it in different formats.

It works better with smaller objects, as large objects or spaces like rooms take too long to render, plus mesh is unusable and hard to edit.

4. Canvas

Pick the room you want to scan, then move your device around the room to cover the virtual grid displayed on the screen.

Once you have captured the entire room, the app generates a 3D image that you can view and even walkthrough. Take a tour of the room using gestures or by moving your iPhone or iPad. You can look at a cutaway image of the room which you can then tilt or swivel.

The basic app is free. If you want a professional CAD image of your room for design or architectural purposes, you’ll have to pony up to $15, $29, or $39 per scan based on the complexity you require.

Canvas has the best AR walkthrough and the amalgam of scanned 3D models and textures is the best by far when compared to other apps, but the bad side of it is that you can only scan one single room.

3. Scaniverse

Scaniverse can capture scenes and objects, then generate an interactive 3D image. To scan something, tap the Shutter button and move your iPhone or iPad around the object to grab different views until the shaded lines on the screen disappear. When done, you can save the scan in standard, high, or ultra format. You can then zoom in and out and move around the image to see it from different distances and angles. The scan can then be shared or exported in a variety of file formats.

Works fine with both spaces and objects, and you can use your scanned model in AR and walk through it. The scan quality is decent, and you can share it with everyone using Apple AR, or you can pay for the pro version and export it in a multitude of formats.

2. Polycam

Polycam’s colorization engine is optimized to generate the highest quality of color 3D scans in the least amount of time. Single-room captures take only seconds to process, and all computation happens securely on your device — no internet connection is required. There is no limit to the number of scans you can make or process.

Polycam 3D captures are also dimensionally accurate, enabling you to easily measure any two points’ distance. Measurements are generally accurate, down to about one inch or a couple of centimeters.

The best thing is that you can scan the entire apartment with this one. You can even choose if you want to go space by space, or you can do it in one take — it’s up to you. If you’re going to scan it room by room, you just have to start in the space you have already scanned. Polycom will pick it up from there, and you can continue with scanning.

Like any other app of this type, it has a weakness in the form of mirrors and highly reflective surfaces as such surfaces will look like holes when rendering is completed :( But this is something that developers are yet to figure out.

You can turn off the camera and switch to wireframe only; this way, you can even use it to see in the dark!

1. Reality Composer

Apple’s Reality Composer app gives you an intuitive interface for constructing 3D compositions and augmented reality (AR) experiences. You combine 3D models, audio, and other assets — along with a description of how these objects behave — into a file that you add to your RealityKit-enabled app.
You start by choosing the kind of real-world object that should anchor your scene, like a horizontal surface or the user’s face. Then position virtual elements within your scene. Choose from Reality Composer’s large collection of customizable assets, or import your own in usdz format. Add animations and sound triggered by events like user taps, as well as behaviors driven by the physics simulation.

Games

3. Hot Lava

Hot Lava transports you back to your childhood imagination. Run, jump, climb, and surf in the first person across nostalgia-packed environments flooded with hot molten Lava. Explore alone, or join your friends.

If you want to utilize a lidar sensor on your phone, switch to in-game AR mode. You can then create lava floor in your own room, add all kinds of objects like balloons and trampolines and play with a digital doll-like figure — kind of neat.

But whatever you do… Don’t Touch The Floor.

2. Playground AR

Here’s an app that’s simple but addictive. With the free Playground AR: Physics Sandbox, you place virtual blocks in a real environment to see how they interact with each other. You can choose cubes, rectangles, triangles, cylinders, cue balls, model cars, and then tap a button to put each item on a floor, table, or other surfaces.

Now, this is a way to go! In my personal opinion, this is the future of AR — the ability to create virtual objects and place them in an existing environment in order to interact with them.

1. RC Club

This car racing game puts augmented reality remote-control cars in your real-world environment and then physically interact with walls and other objects as if they were really there.

The vehicles crash into walls, jump off-street sidewalks, and tumble over anything on the floor. The physics feels surprisingly realistic, and it takes just a few seconds to feel like you really are driving an RC car around the floor of your home, only without damaging the walls and running over your own toes.

If you have enough floor space, you can create your own race tracks by placing virtual waypoints on the floor which stay in place while you drive between them. The game also lets you place virtual ramps and obstacles on the floor that the cars interact with as if they were really there.

There are plenty of different cars and race modes to pick from, ensuring the games stay fun and engaging even when the novelty of augmented reality has worn off. That said, although the game is free to download, there are a lot of opportunities for in-game purchases here, and it can become tricky to work through the game without spending real-world money on upgrades.

Most apps dealing with AR are mostly experimental, but hopefully, these AR experiments will pave the way for new ideas.