Scanning rooms to collect 3D geometry is a breeze. After just a few practice scans, you will get the hang of it.
Calibrate and start a scan
To get the fastest calibration time (1-3 seconds) follow these tips
Start at the bottom edge of a wall
Have a clear view of the edge i.e. avoid items like furniture that might block the view
When prompted, point the camera at the top edge of wall
Once the white guiding lines appear, you're done with calibration and can start scanning!
Capture room details quickly and accurately
Once the white lines appear, you are now recording 3D geometry.
You don't need to wait for white lines to catch up to get every detail on screen before moving to a new area of the room
Imagine you are filming a video of the room that gets a clear picture of all of the walls in the room
Rotate around the room, ideally 5-10 ft away from walls. The wider the field of view, the faster we can pick up details.
Don't worry about going too fast - the app will alert you to slow down if needed
Scan one room/zone or one building story at a time
We recommend scanning room-by-room (or a collection of rooms that you consider a zone) or one story at a time. Amply does not support scanning multiple floors in one pass.
Ductless mini-splits (single or multizone): We recommend room-by-room so that you can pair equipment visualization with the loads.
This will also enable the most accurate Adequate Exposure Diversity and peak solar gain calculations
For example, if you have one indoor unit serving a kitchen and open living room, scan that space as a single "room"
Unitary or central air: We still recommend scanning on a room-by-room basis.
You will get room-by-room load calcs
Don't worry, you still get a "block load" calculation on your Manual J report in addition to the room-by-room info
You can take photos and add notes about things like supply and return grills
You will get room-by-room CFM estimates
Walls, window and doors and impact on load calcs
Capturing an accurate representation of exterior walls, windows, and doors in the home is very important for accurate load calculations. If you have trouble scanning a space, capturing a door or window, you can always just re-scan the space. It is also possible to manually add, edit, or remove a door or window. Keep in mind that interior walls have no impact on loads.
Tips when scanning very small spaces like bathrooms and closets
Small spaces can be tricky. For very small bathrooms, we recommend:
Starting the scan from the outside the room i.e. just standing back a few feet from the open bathroom door.
Then, scan the interior space while still mostly standing outside of the bathroom
Try to give the camera a field of view of the space by "peeking" through the door
Then go into the room and hold the iPad above your head and aim at the floor/wall intersection.
Closets often are so small that they can be ignored and have almost no impact on load calcs. Sometimes you might come across a large walk-in closet but it is filled with junk, really dark or just to hard to access. If it has substantial floor area and exterior walls, you can make a small adjustment to your infiltration calcs to correct for that unscanned floor area.
Special LiDAR considerations
Lighting: Scans will be most accurate with good light
A few tips:
Turn on lights
Open curtains to let in more light. This also helps capture window geometry more accurately.
If the room is too dark, the app will automatically warn you of low light conditions
Scanning and LiDAR limitations
Multiple Stories: We do not support scanning multiple stories at a time. See above for more details.
Large mirrors: Ceiling-to-floor mirrors may confuse the 3D scanning capability, avoid them if you can
LiDAR throw distance:
iPad LiDAR has a max range of ~15 ft
Ceilings or walls outside of that range may be hard to capture.
Very dark surfaces:
Objects with very dark surfaces might not be able to be scanned.
Window curtains can prevent proper window capture
Curtains or other window treatments may prevent widows from being accurately measured. Open curtains to both let in more light and prevent window dimensions from being obscured.
Ceilings and Skylights
At the moment, we don't support automatic scanning of skylights or visualization of ceilings.
Ceilings: We don't visualize ceilings because they would impair your view of the room when reviewing the 3D model. But rest assured, we are computing and modeling ceiling surface areas behind the scenes to ensure accurate load calculations
Skylights: Since skylights are a sub-component of ceilings and due to other technical challenges, we can't automatically measure their geometry. Instead, we provide an option for adding skylights with a few taps to any room after you have completed a scan and are viewing the 3D model.