7 ms·

RoomScan: Get a Floor Plan in Minutes Just By Walking Around the Room

230 points by tudborg 12y ago

Ashan 12y ago
Tried this app out a few days ago. The measurements in it are surprisingly good. I was finding it about ~10% out at most. All in all, it is a very good (FREE!) app that can be used to get a decent idea of what might be needed in home renovation.
- umeshunni 12y ago
  I had the opposite experience. It seemed really finicky about how smoothlyI had to move my tablet from one wall to the next .
  - rickyc091 12y ago
    Yeah, I couldn't really get it to work either. The preview seemed to be more or less accurate, but it wasn't able to generate the layout. I was trying to double tap to modify the dimensions manually, but it looks like the free version doesn't allow for it. I guess it's a hit or miss.
th0ma5 12y ago
This seems to be in the neighborhood of Johnny Lee's thinking in Project Tango: https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ ... a lot of the information collected by the increasingly precise sensors is going to allow for next level of... something... I think Project Tango is an example of not knowing what the future is in sensing and looking for network effects to fill in the gap.
donut2d 12y ago
AppStore link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floor/id571436618?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floo... Couldn't find it on my brief scan of the article.
roel_v 12y ago
Quite disappointed - was hoping this was done through computer vision. Aren't there are apps that do this? By the time I've 'scanned' a room the way it's shown in the article, and if that method doesn't even give me heights, doors, windows and outlets, and is only accurate to within half a foot - by that time I've measured it with my laser tape measure 3 times over.
- acgourley 12y ago
  I don't think we're quite at the point where a mobile CPU would be able to pull this off, however filming and uploading a well shot video to a server for further processing should be a workable way to make a full model. I think a big challenge there is a several-minute feedback loop to learn if it worked and if you need to try it again.
  - nobbis 12y ago
    I built an Android app, Forge, that does just that. No feedback loop needed - the reconstruction is streamed back to you as you go: http://aboundlabs.com http://aboundlabs.com
    - diafygi 12y ago
      Incredible demo! You in the bay area?
      - nobbis 12y ago
        Thanks! I was - moving to NYC Monday.
    - acjohnson55 12y ago
      Also very impressive -- just posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474680
    - btown 12y ago
      Is monocular SLAM good enough nowadays that this can be done without depth cameras, just from a single camera?
LukaszB 12y ago
Could anyone possibly shed some light on what is used for measurement? gyro?
- unwind 12y ago
  Yes probably, but I would be surprised if it isn't also integrating over the accelerometers' output. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system.
- dclowd9901 12y ago
  I was actually beginning work on a similar project. Essentially, it's using a combination of the accelerometer and the gyro to get the phone's position in 3D space. That is, when the accelerometer capture lateral velocity, it knows it's moving in a certain direction at a certain speed (until, of course, it receives an opposite velocity, at which point it stops).
  - untog 12y ago
    Did you ever manage to get it to be accurate, though? I tried something similar but the accelerometer and gyro were nowhere near accurate enough.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      Supposedly, there's a rule of thumb that says that dead reckoning by integrating readings with a MEMS sensor is about as good as walking around with your eyes closed. I didn't even get mine working that well when I tried, but I'm sure it's possible if you get the pre-integration noise filtering right. Lately I've seen a lot of app notes and open-source code written by/for amateur drone guidance developers, which I suspect would have helped me a lot.
    - digikata 12y ago
      It's unlikely to be standard inertial navigation, mems sensors drift with dead reckoning integration pretty quickly, even applying more sophisticated kalman filtering may not improve things indoors without GPS (or sufficient travel for GPS even if you could receive it consistently)... But, if you were to add "room-like" assumptions it might improve things pretty well, eg. when integrating a rotation, fit it to a 90 degree corner, similar with traversal, fit it to travel along a wall. With those basic assumptions, I'm guessing you can correct a lot of the raw integration drift. If this is true, my guess is it would start break down in unconventional rooms - octagonal rooms, non parallel walls, etc...
dominotw 12y ago
This would be nice if I can feed the output to my neato( or roomba).
dsirijus 12y ago
I hoped that either they got their hands on Project Tango device or worked with this team in Zurich - http://www.i-programmer.info/news/192-photography-a-imaging/6688-any-mobile-camera-can-be-a-3d-scanner.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/192-photography-a-imaging/... Edit: Btw, anyone who applied for Project Tango got back from them in any way? I didn't.
- smoyer 12y ago
  I applied with an idea very similar to the OP, except I'm interested in capturing GIS coordinates and video to automatically capture engineering drawings for central offices, head ends and data centers that include racked equipment. I haven't seen even an e-mail confirming they received my application, so I don't know whether I was rejected or never entered.
- cdtwigg 12y ago
  Structured light cameras like Project Tango or Occipital's Structure sensor that project a textured pattern would work well here. Stereo algorithms like the one you linked that use the regular phone camera are likely to struggle here, because flat, blank walls are a worst-case scenario for them (yes, they're using the accelerometer to assist, but the reconstruction still needs texture).
- encoderer 12y ago
  We heard back and got a device last week.
  - dsirijus 12y ago
    If so, they're being rude toward the rest of us.
    - encoderer 12y ago
      They certainly had a ton of responses, and possibly they plan on working their way down a list or something.
onedognight 12y ago
Here's an alternative with a more interactive work flow: http://magic-plan.com/ http://magic-plan.com/ .
- daviding 12y ago
  That seems to work a little better for me in terms of accuracy. This approach is different in that this is using a fixed eye position and overlay measure on the camera image and then working out the arctangent etc. Clever.
- DoggettCK 12y ago
  Considering I'm only using it for getting a general layout of rooms for my wife and I to place furniture, this is awesome.
- radley 12y ago
  Tried it. More bells but difficult to make accurate. Hard to use if you can't see the floor corners of a room or if dealing with short narrow spaces.
  - deveac 12y ago
    As did I, quite some time ago. I found it did a poor job with rooms that had actual stuff in them, -particularly the corners. Seemed cool but I discarded it as an option even without an alternative. RoomScan has been making its way around the blogs and I tried it out the other day. It did a great job of capturing my non-rectangular kitchen (after I failed at my first attempt by ignoring the instructions to touch each wall, then the 1st and 2nd wall once more, then ending). Roomscan > for spaces with stuff and/or narrow spaces, or Magic-Plan > for empty spaces more wide open was basically my experience. Easy enough to try both though.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sdfjkl 12y ago
I've tried this a while ago. Did not work very well at all on an iPhone 4S, it would either tell me to re-try or come up with a plan that was completely off.
wehadfun 12y ago
HomeDepot should let people use this instead of charging 30 for a measure and loosing it 3 months later
kingkawn 12y ago
I usually Look at it for a few seconds and then think about what I want to do in there in my Brain.
prody 12y ago
Does anyone know how it actually works?
easy_rider 12y ago
I got a lot more excited when I read about this a while ago (2012) [1]. It also states to be slightly more accurate. It also seems less cumbersome. [1] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/126843-think-gps-is-cool-ips-will-blow-your-mind http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/126843-think-gps-is-cool-... I haven't tried anything, but it seems there are already lots of solutions and this is just another approach.
bethn 12y ago
Google's Project Tango (https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/) and Structure.io seem to be the most promising in this area. I have difficulty seeing any professionals adopting RoomScan as it still seems more difficult than just using a laser measure.
choonkeat 12y ago
"Your phone wasn't able to record all of the movement. Please try again" can't get past 2 walls. iphone 4s

230 points by tudborg 12y ago

Ashan 12y ago

Tried this app out a few days ago. The measurements in it are surprisingly good. I was finding it about ~10% out at most. All in all, it is a very good (FREE!) app that can be used to get a decent idea of what might be needed in home renovation.

umeshunni 12y ago
I had the opposite experience. It seemed really finicky about how smoothlyI had to move my tablet from one wall to the next .
- rickyc091 12y ago
  Yeah, I couldn't really get it to work either. The preview seemed to be more or less accurate, but it wasn't able to generate the layout. I was trying to double tap to modify the dimensions manually, but it looks like the free version doesn't allow for it. I guess it's a hit or miss.

th0ma5 12y ago

This seems to be in the neighborhood of Johnny Lee's thinking in Project Tango: https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ ... a lot of the information collected by the increasingly precise sensors is going to allow for next level of... something... I think Project Tango is an example of not knowing what the future is in sensing and looking for network effects to fill in the gap.

donut2d 12y ago

AppStore link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floor/id571436618?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floo... Couldn't find it on my brief scan of the article.

roel_v 12y ago

Quite disappointed - was hoping this was done through computer vision. Aren't there are apps that do this? By the time I've 'scanned' a room the way it's shown in the article, and if that method doesn't even give me heights, doors, windows and outlets, and is only accurate to within half a foot - by that time I've measured it with my laser tape measure 3 times over.

acgourley 12y ago
I don't think we're quite at the point where a mobile CPU would be able to pull this off, however filming and uploading a well shot video to a server for further processing should be a workable way to make a full model. I think a big challenge there is a several-minute feedback loop to learn if it worked and if you need to try it again.
- nobbis 12y ago
  I built an Android app, Forge, that does just that. No feedback loop needed - the reconstruction is streamed back to you as you go: http://aboundlabs.com http://aboundlabs.com
  - diafygi 12y ago
    Incredible demo! You in the bay area?
    - nobbis 12y ago
      Thanks! I was - moving to NYC Monday.
  - acjohnson55 12y ago
    Also very impressive -- just posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7474680
  - btown 12y ago
    Is monocular SLAM good enough nowadays that this can be done without depth cameras, just from a single camera?

LukaszB 12y ago

Could anyone possibly shed some light on what is used for measurement? gyro?

unwind 12y ago
Yes probably, but I would be surprised if it isn't also integrating over the accelerometers' output. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system.
dclowd9901 12y ago
I was actually beginning work on a similar project. Essentially, it's using a combination of the accelerometer and the gyro to get the phone's position in 3D space. That is, when the accelerometer capture lateral velocity, it knows it's moving in a certain direction at a certain speed (until, of course, it receives an opposite velocity, at which point it stops).
- untog 12y ago
  Did you ever manage to get it to be accurate, though? I tried something similar but the accelerometer and gyro were nowhere near accurate enough.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    Supposedly, there's a rule of thumb that says that dead reckoning by integrating readings with a MEMS sensor is about as good as walking around with your eyes closed. I didn't even get mine working that well when I tried, but I'm sure it's possible if you get the pre-integration noise filtering right. Lately I've seen a lot of app notes and open-source code written by/for amateur drone guidance developers, which I suspect would have helped me a lot.
  - digikata 12y ago
    It's unlikely to be standard inertial navigation, mems sensors drift with dead reckoning integration pretty quickly, even applying more sophisticated kalman filtering may not improve things indoors without GPS (or sufficient travel for GPS even if you could receive it consistently)... But, if you were to add "room-like" assumptions it might improve things pretty well, eg. when integrating a rotation, fit it to a 90 degree corner, similar with traversal, fit it to travel along a wall. With those basic assumptions, I'm guessing you can correct a lot of the raw integration drift. If this is true, my guess is it would start break down in unconventional rooms - octagonal rooms, non parallel walls, etc...

dominotw 12y ago

This would be nice if I can feed the output to my neato( or roomba).

dsirijus 12y ago

I hoped that either they got their hands on Project Tango device or worked with this team in Zurich - http://www.i-programmer.info/news/192-photography-a-imaging/6688-any-mobile-camera-can-be-a-3d-scanner.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/192-photography-a-imaging/... Edit: Btw, anyone who applied for Project Tango got back from them in any way? I didn't.

smoyer 12y ago
I applied with an idea very similar to the OP, except I'm interested in capturing GIS coordinates and video to automatically capture engineering drawings for central offices, head ends and data centers that include racked equipment. I haven't seen even an e-mail confirming they received my application, so I don't know whether I was rejected or never entered.
cdtwigg 12y ago
Structured light cameras like Project Tango or Occipital's Structure sensor that project a textured pattern would work well here. Stereo algorithms like the one you linked that use the regular phone camera are likely to struggle here, because flat, blank walls are a worst-case scenario for them (yes, they're using the accelerometer to assist, but the reconstruction still needs texture).
encoderer 12y ago
We heard back and got a device last week.
- dsirijus 12y ago
  If so, they're being rude toward the rest of us.
  - encoderer 12y ago
    They certainly had a ton of responses, and possibly they plan on working their way down a list or something.

onedognight 12y ago

Here's an alternative with a more interactive work flow: http://magic-plan.com/ http://magic-plan.com/ .

daviding 12y ago
That seems to work a little better for me in terms of accuracy. This approach is different in that this is using a fixed eye position and overlay measure on the camera image and then working out the arctangent etc. Clever.
DoggettCK 12y ago
Considering I'm only using it for getting a general layout of rooms for my wife and I to place furniture, this is awesome.
radley 12y ago
Tried it. More bells but difficult to make accurate. Hard to use if you can't see the floor corners of a room or if dealing with short narrow spaces.
- deveac 12y ago
  As did I, quite some time ago. I found it did a poor job with rooms that had actual stuff in them, -particularly the corners. Seemed cool but I discarded it as an option even without an alternative. RoomScan has been making its way around the blogs and I tried it out the other day. It did a great job of capturing my non-rectangular kitchen (after I failed at my first attempt by ignoring the instructions to touch each wall, then the 1st and 2nd wall once more, then ending). Roomscan > for spaces with stuff and/or narrow spaces, or Magic-Plan > for empty spaces more wide open was basically my experience. Easy enough to try both though.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sdfjkl 12y ago

I've tried this a while ago. Did not work very well at all on an iPhone 4S, it would either tell me to re-try or come up with a plan that was completely off.

wehadfun 12y ago

HomeDepot should let people use this instead of charging 30 for a measure and loosing it 3 months later

kingkawn 12y ago

I usually Look at it for a few seconds and then think about what I want to do in there in my Brain.

prody 12y ago

Does anyone know how it actually works?

easy_rider 12y ago

I got a lot more excited when I read about this a while ago (2012) [1]. It also states to be slightly more accurate. It also seems less cumbersome. [1] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/126843-think-gps-is-cool-ips-will-blow-your-mind http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/126843-think-gps-is-cool-... I haven't tried anything, but it seems there are already lots of solutions and this is just another approach.

bethn 12y ago

Google's Project Tango (https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/) and Structure.io seem to be the most promising in this area. I have difficulty seeing any professionals adopting RoomScan as it still seems more difficult than just using a laser measure.

choonkeat 12y ago

"Your phone wasn't able to record all of the movement. Please try again" can't get past 2 walls. iphone 4s