The light pulses are invisible to the human eye, but you could see them with a night vision camera. 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. Some other smartphones measure depth with a single light pulse. Lidar is a type of time-of-flight camera. That's the lidar sensor, and it's a new type of depth-sensing that could make a difference in many exciting ways. 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. This feature comes in handy when shooting photos at night, but it also plays a role in various mobile apps. 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 device cost around $10k back then, but I remember that I was so impressed with the speed and resolution. 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. They had just received a new 3D scanner, so he asked if I wanted to see how pro 3D scanning looks.
#3D SCAN TO CAD PORTABLE#
He generously accepted, and I went there with my portable hard drive. 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. The first time I saw the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology at work was ten years ago.