Good and economic device for indoor and outdoor mapping?

[marius851000]

I would like to do 3d map of both indoor (the most important) and outdoor environment for use into OpenStreetMap.

I don't care about texture, or little detail, but having an accuratr shape is more important. I've been looking at what I can find that won't be too costly, and I think the Phab 2 Pro, which can be bought at less than 100€, is a good device. I'm just worried about the range of the depth sensor, whivh may not be a big deal for indoor, but should make walking around the 3d outdoor environment far longer.

Do you have some opinion about that? I tested on my android phone with ARCore, and it already seems to provide some nice result.

(also, the 3d map won't be used as-is. It'll be exported as a top-down view image that can be used in a 2d mapping software like JOSM)

I am additionally an owner of a SteamDeck, so I'm fine with devices that need to be constantly connected to a (relativelly compared to odroid and co) high performance computer (but I don't really need doing the SLAM in real-time, and photogrammetry seems to have a lot of difficulty with mapping a large area with no global view)

[matlabbe]

Hi,

if you need a depth sensor, Tango phones were nice/cheap, but they cannot run on latest android version, which make them difficult to update/support them. Personally, I moved to ArKit+iPad Pro Lidar (iPad Pro as it is less expensive than iphone Pro), for latest still supported devices. The first iPad Pro 2020 with Lidar is still pretty good, you may find an used one if you want to save money.

The iPad's lidar works better outdoor than the Tango phone's TOF sensor. The ARKit+Lidar is the new Tango.

You said "I tested on my android phone with ARCore, and it already seems to provide some nice result.", maybe you don't need a TOF/lidar sensor. However, if you want accurate geometry, I suggest to use a TOF/lidar compatible phone/tablet.

cheers,
Mathieu