The goal is to capture the entire space from multiple angles while keeping the phone moving slowly and steadily.
Whether you're scanning a single room or an entire multi-room space, these tips will help you get better coverage and more detailed results.
1. Before you start
Turn on the lights
Make sure the space is well lit before you begin. If the room is dark, turn on the lights so the camera can track the environment more reliably. For the best results, try to keep lighting conditions consistent throughout the room. Avoid strong contrasts, such as areas in direct sunlight next to deep shadows, as changes in lighting can make it more difficult to capture the space accurately.
Open the doors
If you're scanning multiple rooms, open all the doors between the areas you want to capture before starting the scan.
Avoid opening doors while you're already scanning. Changes to the scene during capture can lead to artifacts or gaps in the resulting scan.
Check windows and mirrors
Be aware of large windows and reflective surfaces. When scanning near mirrors, try to avoid capturing your own reflection in the mirror or its frame.
2. Scanning
Begin from the corner of a room. You can use either landscape or portrait mode. Our reconstruction pipeline works with both.
Move the camera gently from side to side until you see 3D points appearing on the screen. These points show which parts of the scene you have already scanned.
Scan the floor and the ceiling
For the ceiling, start at the line where the wall meets the ceiling and move along it, so you capture the wall and the ceiling at the same time. To avoid missing the center of the ceiling, try to scan it from each side of the room.
For the floor, start at the line where the wall meets the floor and move along it, so you capture the wall and the floor at the same time. For furniture such as chairs and tables, tilt the phone further downward and move closer to capture the areas underneath and around them. It's easy to miss the floor along the path you're walking, so we recommend turning around from time to time to capture the floor behind you.
For outdoor scenes, a common mistake is not capturing enough of the sky and background. Scan these areas from multiple viewpoints so you cover them fully.
Scan from every corner
For thorough coverage, stop at each corner of the room and look back toward the other three corners. This shows the camera the whole room from multiple viewpoints and makes the final reconstruction more complete.
For furniture and other objects, capture them from different heights and angles. Make sure to scan all sides of the object, including areas that may not be visible from your main walking path.
Capture important details up close
For a more detailed reconstruction, or to capture readable text, move closer to the area and scan it slowly. This adds much more detail to the final reconstruction.
As a rule of thumb:
- More distance is usually better for capturing the overall space, while getting closer is useful for capturing detail.
- Capture the scene from multiple viewpoints to improve the quality of the final reconstruction.