- 1
The phone
An iPhone Pro: three lenses, a flash, and beside them the LiDAR scanner, the part that measures.
- 2
Walk the room
The scanner sends depth points out of the back of the phone. Where they land, a wall, the floor or a piece of furniture takes shape, and RoomPlan names what it finds.
- 3
Into the browser
Up to once per second the phone sends the room as measured so far. Any browser with the scan open redraws it with each snapshot: the plan fills in and the walls rise.
- 4
Walk around a piece
RoomPlan sees a chair as a box. Walk around it with Object Capture and the phone builds the piece itself, measured by the LiDAR. Lintel stands it where the box stood, at its own size, and reports how far the two differ.
- 5
The room fills
The other pieces come from the same place. A design adds them beside the scan, and you move them by hand. Each is one recorded op, and room.json is never touched. These are public domain models standing in for captures.
- 6
Ask where the light falls
Soon you will describe what you want in a sentence. Lintel will read the windows and the sun, then move the desk to where the sun falls.
preview · asking in words and the library are not built yet
- 7
Start from a picture
A piece that is not in the library starts from a picture: upload one, take one, or describe it and a picture is drawn first. A 3D model on your own hardware builds it, scaled to real size, and it can replace a box in the room.
preview · asking in words and the library are not built yet
- description
- picture
- 3D model
- placed in room
faq
Questions.
What do I need to scan a room?
An iPhone or iPad with a LiDAR scanner, which the Pro models have, and the Lintel app on it. Looking at a scan needs only a browser, on any computer or phone.
Where do I get the iPhone app?
The iPhone app is in private testing and is not on the App Store yet, and accounts are by invitation for now.
Where is a scan kept?
In Lintel’s database, under your account. The phone uploads room.json, model.usdz and scan.json over HTTPS with a device key you create in Settings, and each file downloads again from the scan page.
Can I show a room to someone?
Turn on the scan’s share link and whoever has it can look around the room in their browser, read-only, with no account. Turn it off and the link stops working. Nobody else can open a scan.
Is the scan ever changed?
No. room.json stays exactly as the phone sent it. A design is stored beside it as a list of edits, and the viewer applies the list when it draws.
How accurate are the measurements?
They are RoomPlan’s. Lintel shows the lengths the phone reported, to the centimeter, along with how confident RoomPlan was about each element. It does not adjust them.
Can it design for me?
In part. On the web an object starts from a picture: upload one, take one, or describe it and a picture is drawn first. You can select the subject, then a 3D model on your own hardware builds it, scaled to the box's real size, and it replaces a box in a scanned room. You move, rotate, resize and raise it by hand. Asking in a sentence where the sun falls, or for plants from a library, is not built yet: those two request scenes in the story are a scripted preview.
Where do the models in the story come from?
The chairs and the vase are photogrammetry scans from the Smithsonian, and the furniture and plants are from Poly Haven. All are public domain (CC0) and stand in for what a phone would capture. Lintel ran each through the same converter a capture from the phone goes through. The sun, the desk’s place and every size on the page are computed from the room and the models.
What does it cost?
Nothing. There is no paid plan.
Measure the room you are sitting in.
Walk the walls with the phone. The drawing is in the browser before you sit back down.