A startup which makes an exclusive sensor that integrates with Apple iPads wants to make home improvement easier for those more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse compared to a measuring tape.
iPads accessory can certainly make remodeling your house simpler
Canvas, a free new app from Occipital, lets iPad users capture a scale model of any room. Once users have scanned a room, they can go back and pull any measurement from it – like how wide a window is, or exactly how tall the ceilings are.
It’s pretty easy. Occipital CEO Jeff Powers accurately scan a lounge at Business Insider headquarters in Half a minute.
Canvas requires Occipital’s Structure Sensor, though, along with a wide-angle lens attachment. The Structure Sensor plugs into your iPad’s Lightning port, and attaches to it with a customized bracket. Inside its aluminum hull is a 3D sensor which can accurately determine the distance of objects.
Coupled with some pretty complicated math, it means an app can accurately tell that the ceiling is, say, 14 feet high nearly instantaneously. It may produce detailed models that actually resemble your rooms.
Even though the Canvas app is free, the Structure Sensor costs $379, and the required wide-angle lens costs $39, or only $20 extra when bundled together with the Structure Sensor. And in case you want to export the Canvas model into an CAD file, for additional manipulation, it costs $29 per model.
Powers says the primary target audience for Canvas is professional interior designers and contractors, but he suspects some do-it-yourselfers may find it useful, too.
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