Polycam - LiDAR & 3D Scanner 4+

App works great!!

EDIT: they fixed the bug and now the app works perfectly! Incredible app.

For starters: I’m on iPhone 12 Mini, iOS 15.6 The app just hangs on the message “hold device still to calibrate” forever and never does anything. Not to mention the lack of feedback the app gives the user, of which there is none. Would be helpful to have some indication that the app is processing or something so I could tell how much longer I need to stay still. Maybe a progress bar at the very least? Or any feedback that the app is actually doing anything or why it’s asking me to hold still. When I try to close the capture window and exit without saving it doesn’t do anything except add a small message that says “saving data” which ,once again, hangs forever. I haven’t even been able to get the app to take one photo. I hope an update comes soon because in theory this sounds like a very powerful app that I’d be happy to pay for, but until then I have to give it a poor review.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, we had a rough bug introduced on Friday that made the app pretty unusable over the weekend for folks who created accounts between 2PM PST Friday and 9PM PST Monday. The bug is now resolved, though. If you just started using Polycam over the weekend, in order to use the app as normal, you'll need to log out and create a new Polycam account with a different email (or hit "skip >"). Huge apologies for the issues and if you have any other questions please email me at contact@polycam.ai

Too Many Bugs

Yesterday I had 2 completed scans completely disappear from my phone. Lucky for me I had immediately uploaded the first one to the cloud so I could share it, but then it disappeared from my phone entirely when I exited out of the finished scan and back to all of the other scans I’ve done. The same thing happened again later in the day, only this time I wasn’t so lucky, it too disappeared when I exited the scan and I didn’t upload it to the cloud. Also, I couldn’t extend a scan. The app says it has successfully relocated and to move the phone to start scanning, but nothing happens. One of the scans I sent to the cloud and shared with my gf appeared as all black with no surface detail even though it looks fine on the phone. I deleted it from the cloud and reuploaded it only to get the same result. Lastly, at the end of my last scan of the day (I did like 7 total including the ones that disappeared), I hit the red button to end the scan and save it but it just hung there. I had to quit the app and pray that the scan actually saved because by that point I was out of daylight. Thankfully it saved, but these bugs (except for the first where the scans totally disappeared) happen way too often.

Developer Response ,

Hey there - thanks so much for your review / feedback. You've obviously used the app a lot, and I'm sorry you're encountering issues. I'll try to address them individually:
- The disappearing captures are hard to explain - must be a bug, but we'll keep an eye on that. Sorry, I'm sure it's frustrating to have work disappear!
- With the Extend button, you have to make sure you tap the "record" button after it's relocalized to start a new Session. The Extend interface is a little confusing in general - we should make it clearer soon.
- Captures can appear black on mobile web browsers if the texture is larger than 4K, which happens at many processing levels. If your gf downloads the app or looks at the capture on a desktop web browser, it will appear normal.
- Sorry about the hang. Sometimes that can happen with an intermittent web connection. If your web connection is very weak, try creating the LiDAR capture in airplane mode. This is something we'll work to improve as well.

Anyways, thanks again for your detailed review! You can get in touch with us directly (contact@polycam.ai) if you'd like to chat more or provide other feedback. It's how we make the product better :)

Now I can’t imagine a world without it

I remember the moment in Pixar’s Ratatouille where the food critic is transported back to his childhood having experienced something so delicious that his very heart is changed, and his life is forever altered. A very similar scene almost certainly has played out thousands of times around the globe since the inception of Polycam, as 3D modelers everywhere one at a time discovered an app that turned hours of troubleshooting and manual labor into seconds of automated smartphone contained convenience. Strongly appreciate the effort to allow users to keep scanning for free if one can’t afford the pro subscription with trade off‘s that still render the app usable for personal use without ads. My sincerest compliments to the chef, the app is one of the most essential in the industry, and the entire App Store too!