Background
Turning real-world objects into usable digital assets is no longer a niche concern — yet most workflows still demand expensive specialist scanners, prepared studios and domain expertise before a physical object becomes a usable 3D asset. At the same time, expectations have shifted: content should be available in VR, AR and prospectively visionOS environments immediately after capture, not two weeks later.
The research project closes that gap: start with consumer hardware, process it professionally, deliver it cleanly into immersive environments.
Solution
We're building an iOS app that implements this workflow end to end.
- Capture via iPhone LiDAR. Current iPhones ship with a LiDAR sensor that's perfectly capable for everyday 3D scans. The app guides users through capture, checks for quality and completeness, and produces a clean data foundation.
- Scientific processing at the University of Wuppertal. The Bergische Universität Wuppertal handles the demanding scientific post-processing — from geometry cleanup to enrichment with metadata and automated classification (e.g. component recognition).
- Display and placement inside the app. Processed 3D objects come back into the app where they can be viewed, measured and placed into VR/AR scenes. Prospectively, a visionOS application takes the spatial engagement with these objects to a new level.
The project runs within the European funding framework and is co-funded by the European Union.
Outcome
Just Scan it 3D delivers a continuous workflow from mobile capture to immersive use — consumer hardware as the entry point, scientific processing in the middle. That makes a wide range of 3D capture use cases broadly accessible: from reverse engineering and damage documentation (see header image: vehicle damage classification) to training and visualisation scenarios in VR/AR.
Why this fits us
Spatial computing projects often stall where the research pipeline meets product engineering. We bridge both: native iOS development with LiDAR, robust data paths to university-side processing, and immersive frontends that don't look like a demo prototype. That is exactly the bridge needed here.