iPhone / iPad LiDAR accuracy?

Nick Pucino

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Dec 7, 2020, 7:28:43 PM12/7/20

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Hi, despite not directly related to LAStools, this forum is a Mecca for LiDAR related questions! I hope it is an acceptable question.

I was hoping to better understand the potentials of the LiDAR sensor integrated in the latest iPad pro, with no luck.

As you are all working with LiDAR sensors, can you give me an indication (or expectation) on the accuracy of this system, based on your experience with real LiDAR systems, say, if I wanted to measure my foot or my hand (close range).

Thanks for any info!

Best Regards,

Nick

Michael Stimson

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Dec 8, 2020, 7:41:34 PM12/8/20

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A LiDAR system has two main components: the sensor and the dGPS/INU (differential GPS/inertial navigation unit, also called INS). I don’t think your iPad makes any difference. Don’t confuse real LiDAR (with a LASER) with LiDAR exported from autocorrelation of photos taken by a drone; true LiDAR is active, emitting a beam and measuring the time it takes to return false (or pseudo) LiDAR is passive, collecting the reflectance of sunlight – note here that pseudo LiDAR doesn’t see the ground beneath the tree canopy which is a trap that many beginners fall into, having spent thousands on a drone and camera, capturing their information only to find that the data is useless for their purpose as the gaps between ground points is extreme and can miss entire hills.

On a side note a real LiDAR system will work at night but to be safe ensure you can see your drone at all times, some lights might be enough if you’re away from buildings but if you’re flying over a populated place it would be best to limit your capture between dawn and dusk, avoiding mist/fog/dust as it will increase the amount of noise making post processing a pain.

Your iPad Pro GPS or location service is nowhere near accurate enough for either method of generating height information, if you intend to use your iPad it would only be for post processing (using LASTools) and visualization in your favourite GIS software.

Michael Stimson

Senior GIS Analyst
RPS | Australia Asia Pacific
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Jae Ogilvie

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Dec 8, 2020, 8:14:55 PM12/8/20

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Although I can’t give any quantification of the accuracy of the LiDAR (yes it’s a laser folks) on the iPad Pro, https://blog.halide.cam/lidar-peek-into-the-future-with-ipad-pro-11d38910e9f8 provides a good overview and they found accuracy only good enough to map down to a small piece of furniture. They give some examples of the dot pattern/density you can expect from the solid state LiDAR system in Apple’s latest devices. I hope that helps!

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Evon Silvia

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Dec 8, 2020, 8:28:33 PM12/8/20

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iPad Pro 2020, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max all include basic solid-state lidar sensors along the lines of the newest Kinect models. The prototype Google Tango had similar technology, but I don't think it took off.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/lidar-on-the-iphone-12-pro-what-it-can-do-now-and-why-it-matters-for-the-future/ar-BB1a65uX

According to that article, the range is supposedly around 16 feet (~5 meters). As Michael correctly observed, you're somewhat constrained by the low quality of the IMU and GPS built into the ios devices, but I have yet to see any specs or empirical tests of the sensors. They are intended for streamlining AR and immersion, which expect relatively high fidelity external data and are enabled by industry-standard SLAM tech. SLAM is widely available now, not just for photo-derived datasets.

Overall, I'd expect decent mapping-grade quality (several cm relative accuracy), especially if you managed to stabilize it somehow. The best part is that the lidar sensor should stabilize the distortion commonly seen from the multi-camera photo-derived point clouds because it's pure ranging data in an array.

Evon

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Nick Pucino

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Dec 9, 2020, 5:51:00 PM12/9/20

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Hi guys,

thanks a lot for all your information, I really appreciated.

My issue was also with the IMU system of the iPAD, which is nowhere close to the high-quality ones ($$$$) seen in surveyor-grade mapping systems.

@ Michael Stimson : thx for your answer. Yes, I know very well digital photogrammetry (and SfM-MVS), but the new iPAD has an actual active LiDAR system, which I was skeptical about.
@ JAE OGILVIE: Thx for the link! I came across it and found the only relevant info the one you reported here. But, I am more looking into close-range small objects reconstruction. Based on what I read in what Evon Silvia sent, it is not quite there yet!

@ Evon Silvia: Thx for the amazing post that I missed. Main limitation they report are:

there are no APIs for developers to use to get access to the underlying depth data. They only expose the processed 3d surface.
optimised for room-scale 3D scan (here is an interesting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz6CExnGw9w).
smallest ‘resolution’ they found this to be feasible in is about furniture-size (chair).

Thanks Evon Silvia also for writing your expectations. Really helpful!

Best Regards,

Nick

Nicolas Pucino

PhD Student in Remote Sensing of Coastal Morphodynamics

Centre for Integrative Ecology | Deakin Marine Mapping Lab

School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science Engineering & Built Environment

Deakin University, Warrnambool Campus

M: +61 423 690 189