The next version of the iPhone operating system includes a new “RoomPlan” API. It will generate a 3D plan by scanning a room with the LiDAR of the iPhone.
You will soon be able to use your iPhone to generate a 3D plan of your interior. iOS 16, the next major update of the iPhone OS, embeds a new API, “RoomPlan”, which uses the LiDAR of iPhones and iPads to quickly create a 3D plan.
As a reminder, the LiDAR is a device using a pulsed laser beam to scan the space of a room and thus measure the distances with surrounding objects. However, this new API will not allow iOS 16, and therefore your iPhone, to scan and generate a 3D plan on the fly. Developers will need to update their app and decide to integrate this API to add this functionality. This API could be particularly useful for developers of real estate or interior design applications.
A complete plan in seconds
Thanks to a piece of demo code made available by Apple for developers, Filipe Esposito, journalist for 9to5Mac, was able to test the functionality on an iPhone 13 Pro Max equipped with a LiDAR. And his experience looks pretty convincing. He says he was able to create a 3D floor plan of his living room in seconds, simply by pointing his iPhone camera at the walls of the room from a compatible app.
The API, capable of detecting certain objects which it represents in the form of blocks, makes it possible to export 3D plans in USDZ format, a file format compatible with popular software such as AutoCAD, Cinema 4D or Shapr3D.
Source :
9to5Mac