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Polycam

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Polycam
Information
Type 3D scanning application
Industry 3D capture, reality capture
Developer Polycam Inc.
Operating System iOS, iPadOS, Android, visionOS, web
License Freemium
Supported Devices iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, Android devices, web browsers
Release Date September 28, 2020 (iOS)
Website https://poly.cam


Polycam is a 3D capture application and cloud platform that turns smartphones and tablets into scanning tools. It creates textured 3D models of objects, rooms and buildings using the LiDAR sensor in Apple's Pro iPhones and iPads, photogrammetry from ordinary photos, and Gaussian splats, and it exports the results to 3D software, game engines and CAD tools.[1][2] The app first appeared on the App Store on September 28, 2020, for the 2020 iPad Pro, and has since been released for iPhone, Android, the web and Apple Vision Pro.[2][3][4]

Polycam is made by Polycam Inc., a company co-founded by Chris Heinrich and Elliott Spelman and headquartered in Berkeley, California.[5] Its relevance to virtual reality and augmented reality comes from two directions: it is built on the depth sensor and ARKit tracking that Apple added to its devices for AR, and its scans are used as assets for XR scenes, as reference models for AR object tracking, and as input data for neural rendering research.[1][6][7] In 2026 the company described its user base as more than 10 million people who had created 34 million scans.[8]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Re-checked all dates, numbers, prices, names and attributions against the App Store and Google Play listings, CG Channel, No Film School, Radiance Fields, 80 Level, TechCrunch, MIXED, Lidar News, Polycam's pricing, Vision 25, Vision Pro and press-release pages, PRWeb, PR Newswire, Vuforia and nerfstudio docs, the polyform README, and the MR-Compare, GSA 2024 and Sensors 2025 papers (Crossref metadata). About review dates.

History

LiDAR launch (2020)

Polycam was released in September 2020 by developers John Stalbaum, Elliott Spelman and Chris Heinrich as an iOS app for Apple's 2020 iPad Pro, which has a LiDAR sensor. CG Channel noted that Apple intended the sensor mainly to improve augmented reality apps, while Polycam used it to produce scan data for production work. The app built a full-color textured mesh in near real time as the user walked around a subject, processing captures locally on the device. The developers said the geometry was "generally accurate down to about one inch". Scanning was free, while exporting geometry in formats such as OBJ, STL, glTF and USDZ required a one-time in-app purchase.[1]

Version 1.1.2, released in November 2020, raised the maximum scan size so that a house of 3,000 square feet or more could be processed. By then the app also ran on iPhone, although because it needed a LiDAR sensor it worked only on the new iPhone 12 Pro and the upcoming iPhone 12 Pro Max.[1]

Photo Mode, Android and Polycam 3.0 (2021-2022)

In 2021 Polycam added Photo Mode, a photogrammetry mode that builds models from a series of photos and therefore works on iPhones without LiDAR. No Film School reported in September 2021 that this ended the app's dependence on LiDAR-equipped devices.[9] The Android version was released on Google Play on April 3, 2022; at that point it offered photogrammetry capture through Photo Mode but not LiDAR scanning.[3][10]

Polycam 3.0, covered by CG Channel in December 2022, was available for Android, iOS and the web. By then the app also had Room Mode, which generated floor plans of interior spaces for export to programs such as AutoCAD in DXF, SVG or PNG format, and a web edition of Photo Mode, which Polycam pitched as an inexpensive way to generate 3D scans of terrain from aerial photography or drone images. Version 3.0 added cylindrical cropping, a rotate tool and automatic camera looping for presentation videos. Scans could be shared on Polyworld, the company's online gallery.[10]

360 capture and Gaussian splatting (2023)

In June 2023, Polycam 3.2.1 for iOS added 360 Capture, which produces a spherical 360-degree image from a phone rotated as if shooting a panorama. The app generates the missing top and bottom of the sphere with Stability AI's Stable Diffusion model, and the result can be used as an environment in tools such as Blender, Unity and Unreal Engine.[11]

On September 28, 2023, Polycam added support for 3D Gaussian splatting, a radiance field method published by researchers at Inria and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics earlier that year, with an interactive web viewer and a gallery of user submissions. The beta required between 20 and 200 photos per splat, and uploads were public.[12][13] The feature left beta on November 9, 2023. Video upload from desktop was added, uploads became private by default, the image cap rose to 1,000 images (or 15 minutes of video), splats could be created inside the iOS app, and captures were cleared for commercial use. Radiance Fields reported that co-founder Chris Heinrich confirmed the implementation used the gsplat library from the nerfstudio project.[14] 80 Level reported in January 2024 that splats could be exported from Polycam as PLY files and that ready-made plug-ins existed for Blender, Unreal Engine and Unity.[15]

Series A and Apple Vision Pro (2024)

On February 7, 2024, Polycam announced an $18 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from Adobe Ventures and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. Heinrich, then CEO, told TechCrunch that the money would fund 3D editing and collaboration features, AI models for 3D rendering and expansion into new markets, and that the company planned to double its 22-person staff by 2025. He said Polycam had nearly 100,000 paying customers and more than 10 million downloads across iPhone and Android.[16] Radiance Fields reported Adjacent as a co-lead and named further angel investors, including Shaun Maguire of Sequoia Capital and Hugging Face co-founder Julien Chaumond.[17]

The same week, Polycam became available on Apple Vision Pro.[4] Heinrich told TechCrunch that the headset would become a key area of the company's focus in the following months.[16]

Vision 25 (2025)

Polycam presented a set of features under the name Vision 25 in a live stream on February 26, 2025. Space Mode combined LiDAR and Room Mode capture in a single scan; Photo Mode was renamed Object Mode and gained capture guidance; Scenes let users arrange several captures in one virtual space; and the release added Spatial Reports with automatic measurements, comments on 3D models, and a generator that converts a single 2D image into a 3D model.[18] Lidar News also reported that Vision 25 brought Gaussian splatting to Object Mode.[19]

Non-LiDAR Space Mode and enterprise platform (2026)

On January 14, 2026, Polycam extended Space Mode to iPhones without LiDAR. The company said the mode uses computer vision and machine learning to infer depth from ordinary video, with an on-device AI model giving real-time feedback during capture, and that it works on the iPhone 13 and newer and on recent iPad mini, iPad and iPad Air models. Scanning, measurement and link sharing were made free, while professional exports and Virtual Walkthrough stayed on paid plans. The release listed floor plan generation and Android support for Space Mode as coming in 2026.[5] A Floor Plan Editor for adjusting AI-generated floor plans on mobile or desktop followed on March 4, 2026.[20]

On August 19, 2026, the company launched an enterprise platform with a content API, regional data storage, folders with role-based permissions, SOC 2 Type 1 compliance and single sign-on, aimed at architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, insurance and facility management customers.[8] As of October 2026 the iOS app is at version 7.0.4 and requires iOS 18.0 or later.[2]

Timeline

Date Event Source
September 28, 2020 iOS release for the LiDAR-equipped 2020 iPad Pro [2][1]
November 2020 Version 1.1.2 allows larger scans; the app also runs on the iPhone 12 Pro [1]
2021 Photo Mode brings photogrammetry to iPhones without LiDAR [9]
April 3, 2022 Android version released on Google Play [3]
December 2022 Polycam 3.0 for Android, iOS and web [10]
June 2023 360 Capture in version 3.2.1 for iOS [11]
September 28, 2023 Gaussian splatting added in beta [12]
November 9, 2023 Gaussian splatting leaves beta [14]
February 2024 $18 million Series A; Apple Vision Pro app [16][4]
February 26, 2025 Vision 25 features, including Space Mode and Object Mode [18]
January 14, 2026 Space Mode on iPhones without LiDAR [5]
March 4, 2026 Floor Plan Editor [20]
August 19, 2026 Enterprise platform [8]

Features

Capture modes

Mode Method Devices and notes Source
Space Mode LiDAR depth or AI depth estimation from video iPhone and iPad; LiDAR models, or iPhone 13 and newer without LiDAR since January 2026; produces textured models and floor plans [18][5]
Object Mode (formerly Photo Mode) Photogrammetry from photos or video, processed in the cloud iOS, Android and web; image limits depend on the plan [18][21]
Gaussian splats Gaussian splatting from photos or video Created on the web and in the iOS app; exported as PLY [14][15]
360 photosphere Panorama with AI-generated poles Usable as an environment in game engines and 3D software [11]
AI generated captures 3D model generated from a single 2D image Introduced with Vision 25 [18]
Drone and aerial Capture from drone and aerial footage For roofs, exteriors and whole sites [2]

When processing Photo Mode (Object Mode) captures, images are uploaded to Polycam's servers for reconstruction, while LiDAR captures are processed on the device.[7] The company's open-source polyform tools state that Polycam globally optimizes the ARKit camera poses before reconstructing a LiDAR mesh, so that users can loop back over the same area without drift, and that pose optimization runs by default on scenes of fewer than 700 frames.[6]

Exports and editing

The free plan exports only glTF. The Basic plan adds six further mesh formats (OBJ, FBX, DAE, STL, USDZ and ESX), and the Business plan adds point cloud exports, 2D and 3D floor plans and AI-generated reports; the pricing page lists PLY, LAS, geo-referenced LAS, PTS, XYZ and DXF among the point cloud and CAD formats.[21] Polycam's pricing page lists Unity and Three.js as targets for glTF and Apple's Reality Composer for USDZ, and its 3D and VFX page names Blender, Unity, Maya, Unreal, Cinema 4D and AutoCAD as compatible software.[21][22] Editing tools include cropping, rescaling, remeshing, measurement, and Scenes that combine several captures.[21][18]

Use in VR and AR

Apple Vision Pro

The visionOS version of Polycam lets users browse the Polycam model library and their own iPhone captures as AR and VR objects, inspect, rotate and scale them, and place them around the room. Polycam describes a workflow in which a subject is scanned on iPhone and then viewed and published from Vision Pro.[23] Viewing on Apple Vision Pro is included in every pricing tier.[21]

Assets for XR development

Because Polycam exports standard formats such as glTF, FBX and USDZ, its scans can be imported into the engines most used for VR and AR development, including Unity and Unreal Engine.[22][21] PTC's Vuforia Engine documentation describes using Polycam to scan physical objects and turn the resulting models into Model Targets,[7] which let Vuforia apps recognize and track particular real-world objects by their shape.[24] The guide notes that LiDAR Mode produces models at true scale, while Photo Mode models need their scale corrected in a mesh editor.[7]

Neural rendering and research data

Polycam's free raw data export, available in developer mode for LiDAR and Room captures on LiDAR-equipped iOS devices, includes images, camera poses and depth maps. The company released the MIT-licensed polyform tools to convert this data for training neural radiance fields, including the Instant-NGP format.[6] The nerfstudio framework lists Polycam captures among its supported custom data types.[25]

A 2026 preprint by Changrui Zhu and colleagues used Polycam as the mobile mesh-scanning workflow in MR-Compare, a mixed reality system on a PC-tethered Meta Quest 3 that compares Gaussian splat and mesh reconstructions with the physical room through video see-through. The authors described the five workflows they tested (Polycam, RealityScan, Scaniverse and two desktop Gaussian splatting workflows run through nerfstudio) as representative of practical XR usage.[26]

Accuracy studies

Independent tests of Polycam's measurement accuracy have produced mixed results. A University of Arkansas - Fort Smith study presented at GSA Connects 2024 scanned geologic outcrops with Polycam on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro (5th generation) using LiDAR and on an iPhone 12 using photogrammetry. LiDAR scans were the more accurate, within 2.5 centimeters at a one-meter scanning distance, but accuracy fell quickly as the distance grew; the optical photogrammetry scans were the most efficient for detailed scans at the micro scale.[27]

A 2025 study in Sensors compared six mobile scanning apps reconstructing a silicone breast phantom for surgical planning. Polycam had the highest mean error (21.4 mm) and the highest variability of the apps tested, against 2.9 mm for the best performer, SureScan; it was also the only app to differ significantly from all the others.[28]

Pricing

Polycam has used a freemium model since launch, but the paid tiers have changed several times.

Period Paid offering (US$) Source
2020 Free scanning; one-time in-app purchase to unlock exports ($9.99, later $11.99) [1]
2021 Pro: $7.99 per month or $39 per year [9]
December 2022 Pro: $7.99 per month or $59.99 per year [10]
June 2023 Pro: $14.99 per month or $79.99 per year [11]
October 2026 Basic: $150 per year or $30 per month; Business: $400 per user per year; Enterprise: $1,200 per user per year (three-user minimum) [21]

Company

Polycam Inc. states that it was founded in 2020 by Christopher Heinrich and Elliott Spelman.[5] TechCrunch dates the company's founding to early 2021 and reports that the two met at Ubiquity6, a mobile 3D scanning and AR startup that was later acquired by Discord.[16] Heinrich was CEO at the time of the 2024 funding round;[16] by January 2026 the company's press releases named Spelman as co-founder and CEO.[5] The company is based in Berkeley, California.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Jim Thacker (2020-11-05). "Polycam turns your iPad Pro into a real-time LIDAR scanner". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2020/11/polycam-turns-your-ipad-pro-into-a-real-time-lidar-scanner/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Polycam 3D Scanner & Measuring". App Store. Apple. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/polycam-3d-scanner-measuring/id1532482376. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Polycam: 3D Scanner & Editor". Google Play. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ai.polycam. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Josef Erl (2024-02-08). "3D Creation-Tool Polycam raises $18M and is now available on Vision Pro". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/3d-creation-tool-polycam-raises-18m-and-is-now-available-on-vision-pro/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 "Polycam Brings Pro-Grade 3D Scanning to 800 Million iPhone Users for Free, No LiDAR Required". Polycam. Polycam Inc.. 2026-01-14. https://poly.cam/press-release/space-mode-access-expanded-2026. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "polyform: Tools for working with raw Polycam data, including export for NeRF and other formats". GitHub. Polycam. https://github.com/PolyCam/polyform. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "Model Targets with Polycam". Vuforia Engine Library. PTC. https://developer.vuforia.com/library/vuforia-engine/images-and-objects/model-targets/using-3d-scans/model-targets-polycam/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "Polycam Launches Enterprise Platform, Enabling the World's Largest Organizations to Run Operations from One Ground Truth". PRWeb. Polycam. 2026-08-19. https://www.prweb.com/releases/polycam-launches-enterprise-platform-enabling-the-worlds-largest-organizations-to-run-operations-from-one-ground-truth-302854281.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Todd Blankenship (2021-09-02). "You Can Now Scan 3D Objects with Any iPhone". No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/you-can-scan-3d-objects-any-iphone. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Jim Thacker (2022-12-19). "Polycam 3.0 released". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2022/12/polycam-3-0-released/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Jim Thacker (2023-06-02). "Polycam gets new AI-based 360 Capture system". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2023/06/polycam-gets-new-ai-based-360-capture-system/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Michael Rubloff (2023-09-28). "Polycam Adds Gaussian Splatting". Radiance Fields. https://radiancefields.com/polycam-adds-gaussian-splatting. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ Bernhard Kerbl, Georgios Kopanas, Thomas Leimkuehler, George Drettakis (2023). "3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering". ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 42, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3592433. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Michael Rubloff (2023-11-09). "Polycam Gaussian Splatting out of Beta". Radiance Fields. https://radiancefields.com/polycam-gaussian-splatting-out-of-beta. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Theodore McKenzie (2024-01-04). "An Easy-to-Use 3D Gaussian Splatting Solution From Polycam". 80 Level. https://80.lv/articles/an-easy-to-use-3d-gaussian-splatting-solution-from-polycam. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Kyle Wiggers (2024-02-07). "3D scanning app Polycam gets backing from YouTube co-founder". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/07/3d-scanning-app-polycam-gets-backing-from-youtube-co-founder/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ Michael Rubloff (2024-02-07). "Polycam Announces $18M Series A". Radiance Fields. https://radiancefields.com/polycam-announces-18m-series-a. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 "Vision 25 Announcement". Polycam. Polycam Inc.. https://poly.cam/vision-25. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ Nathan Roe (2025-02-28). "Polycam Vision 25: Advanced 3D Capture for iOS & Android". Lidar News. https://lidarnews.com/polycam-vision-25-3d-reality-capture/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Polycam Makes Adjustable AI Floor Plans Native to Reality Capture". PR Newswire. Polycam. 2026-03-04. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/polycam-makes-adjustable-ai-floor-plans-native-to-reality-capture-302702948.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 "Pricing". Polycam. Polycam Inc.. https://poly.cam/pricing. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Polycam for 3D / VFX Creators". Polycam. Polycam Inc.. https://poly.cam/solutions/3d-vfx. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ "Native 3D App & 3D Models for Apple Vision Pro". Polycam. Polycam Inc.. https://poly.cam/vision-pro. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  24. ↑ "Model Targets". Vuforia Engine Library. PTC. https://developer.vuforia.com/library/vuforia-engine/images-and-objects/model-targets/model-targets/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  25. ↑ "Using custom data". nerfstudio documentation. https://docs.nerf.studio/quickstart/custom_dataset.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  26. ↑ Changrui Zhu, Ernst Kruijff, Pengju Zhang, Simon Julier (2026-07-22). "MR-Compare: A Mixed-Reality Framework for Spatially Grounded Visual Comparison of 3D Gaussian Splatting and Mesh Reconstructions with the Physical Environment". arXiv. arXiv:2607.20325. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.20325. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  27. ↑ Perla Romero, Abby Kelly, Matt Van Hook, Erik Larson, Maurice P. Testa (2024). "Testing the Accuracy of Polycam 3D Scanning Software on LiDAR and Optical Photogrammetry Devices in Field Research". Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, vol. 56, no. 5. doi:10.1130/abs/2024AM-405030. https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2024AM/webprogram/Paper405030.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  28. ↑ Elena Botti, Bart Jansen, Felipe Ballen-Moreno, Ayush Kapila, Redona Brahimetaj (2025-07-24). "Evaluating the Accuracy and Repeatability of Mobile 3D Imaging Applications for Breast Phantom Reconstruction". Sensors, vol. 25, no. 15, 4596. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25154596. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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