How to Scan a Room in 3D with iPhone LiDAR: The Complete 2026 Guide

Measuring a room used to mean a tape measure, a notepad and a drawing made afterwards, or a surveyor with a dedicated laser scanner. Pro iPhones since the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro models since 2020 have a LiDAR sensor that measures distance with infrared light. Together with Apple's RoomPlan framework, it captures a room as a dimensioned 3D model while you walk slowly along the walls, and on-screen guidance shows which parts are still missing.

This guide covers the whole process: suitable devices, preparing the room, capturing a clean scan with RoomPlan, editing the floor plan and exporting it in the format your project needs. That can be USDZ for AR, DXF for CAD, PDF and SVG for sharing, or raw RoomPlan JSON for developers. The last sections explain what to do when a scan does not come out as expected.

Why Scan a Room in 3D?

A tape-measure sketch tells you that a room is about 4 by 5 meters. A 3D scan gives you a dimensioned model with walls, doors, windows, openings and furniture in their actual positions. You can rotate it, measure it, open it in design software or pass it on to a contractor. Typical uses:

Real estate listings and floor plans. Agents scan each room to create 2D floor plans for listings, so buyers can see how the rooms connect. Our guide to using iPhone LiDAR for real estate floor plans describes this workflow in detail.

Interior design and furniture planning. Designers scan a space and then check whether a sofa fits, how a layout works or what a new wall would change, based on measured dimensions instead of estimates. The exported model opens in common design tools.

Architecture and engineering. Architects and engineers use scans as as-built documentation: a measured starting point for renovations and retrofits that takes minutes instead of a half-day site visit.

Home renovation. For a kitchen remodel or built-in shelving, a scan gives you wall lengths, window positions and door locations, so you can plan materials and cabinets without a second trip with the tape measure.

Facilities and as-built records. Property and facility managers build a library of measured spaces for maintenance, space planning and lease documentation.

AR and 3D work. Game designers, VFX artists and AR developers use scanned rooms as scene references or as base geometry that they refine in their own tools.

In each case, a few minutes of scanning replace a slow manual process, and the result can be used directly in the next step.

What You Need to Scan a Room

Room scanning needs two things: a LiDAR sensor and Apple's RoomPlan framework. Not every iPhone has the sensor, so check your device first.

Devices with LiDAR:

• iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max, and every Pro and Pro Max model since (13 Pro, 14 Pro, 15 Pro, 16 Pro and newer).
• iPad Pro from the 2020 models on.

The standard iPhone models without "Pro" have no LiDAR sensor, and neither do the base iPad, iPad mini and iPad Air. Without the sensor, RoomPlan's room capture is not available. Object Capture also needs LiDAR and, on iPad, an iPad Pro from 2021 or later (see LiDAR vs photogrammetry for how the two methods differ). The app itself installs on any iPhone or iPad running iOS 18, where Building Studio and the floor plan editor work without a sensor.

Software: LiDAR Room Scanner requires iOS 18 or later. Keeping the device on a current iOS version helps capture, editing and export work as expected.

The app: You need a capture app built on RoomPlan, such as LiDAR Room Scanner, which adds on-screen guidance, a floor plan editor and the export formats you need.

You do not need a tripod, markers or calibration targets. The sensor and the framework take the measurements; your part is to move the device steadily, which the next section explains.

Step-by-Step: Scanning a Room with RoomPlan

RoomPlan combines the LiDAR depth data with the camera image and the motion sensors in real time. While you move through the room, it recognizes walls, doors, windows, openings and common furniture. Instead of a single photo, it processes a continuous stream of data as you walk along the walls.

1. Prepare the room

A few minutes of preparation noticeably improve the result:

• Turn on the lights. LiDAR itself also works in the dark, but RoomPlan uses the camera image to classify objects and keep the model aligned. Even, bright light helps it tell a door from a cabinet. During the day, open the curtains as well.
• Open interior doors that should be recognized as doorways, and clear a path along the walls so you can keep a steady distance.
• Tidy up a little. The room does not need to look like a showroom, but clutter on the floor and on counters produces noisy geometry. Clearing the obvious items helps RoomPlan detect the furniture cleanly.
• Note glass and mirrors. Large mirrors, floor-to-ceiling glass and glossy TV screens can confuse depth sensing. You do not need to cover them, but these are the places most likely to need a correction later.

2. Start the capture and frame the first wall

Open the app, start a new room scan and stand near a corner. Hold the device upright at about chest height and point it at the line where a wall meets the floor. RoomPlan needs a moment to detect the room, so wait until the first wall outline appears on screen before you start moving.

3. Walk the perimeter slowly

This step decides the quality of the scan. Move slowly and steadily along the walls, keep the device pointed slightly ahead of you and tilt it gently up and down so the sensor captures the full wall height.

• Keep a consistent distance of roughly 1.5 to 2 meters (5 to 6.5 feet) from the walls. Closer than that, the sensor cannot see the whole wall; farther away, detail decreases. LiDAR accuracy drops beyond about 5 meters, so staying within this range keeps the geometry clean.
• Overlap your coverage. Pause briefly at each corner so both walls are registered before you continue. Do not skip sections: the model only contains surfaces the sensor has actually seen.
• Keep the pace slow. Moving too fast is the most common reason for distorted scans. If the model on screen starts to jitter, slow down or stop until it settles.

4. Follow the live guidance

While you scan, the app shows the model as it is being built and displays instructions when something needs attention, for example to move closer to a wall, to slow down or to turn on more light. Follow these instructions. When the whole perimeter is covered and no more instructions appear, the room is complete.

Make a deliberate pass over doors and windows so they are recognized as openings rather than wall, and a slow pass over large furniture you want in the model. RoomPlan detects common furniture such as sofas, beds, tables, chairs, cabinets and appliances and places them as labeled objects.

5. Finish and process

When the room is complete, end the capture. The app finishes the scan, cleans up the geometry and straightens the walls, and then creates two results: a 3D model of the room and an automatically generated 2D floor plan. This takes a few seconds and runs entirely on the device. Nothing is uploaded to a server, so the scan stays private and scanning works offline.

For more detail on pace, distance, reflective surfaces and the two capture modes, see LiDAR scanning tips for accurate iPhone scans.

Reviewing and Editing Your Floor Plan

A raw scan is rarely perfect, and small corrections are what the editor is for. The floor plan editor in LiDAR Room Scanner has three modes, so you can change exactly what needs changing:

• Geometry mode: adjust walls, doors and windows by dragging their corner points on the plan. Use it to straighten a wall the sensor captured at a slight angle, close a gap or correct a length. Grid snap and on-screen measurements keep the edits precise.
• Labels mode: edit the name and the measurement label of each element, for example to name rooms ("Kitchen", "Bedroom 2"). This mode changes labels, not the type of an element: a window stays a window.
• Objects mode: manage the detected furniture and add pieces from the furniture catalog. Move, rotate or delete pieces to match the real layout, which is useful for staging and design drafts.

The editor also includes undo and redo, grid snap, live measurements and automatic area calculation, so you get the floor area without calculating it yourself. A few minutes spent on corners and labels turn a raw capture into a plan you can share.

If a scan is too distorted to fix with a few edits, it is usually faster to scan the room again. The scanning tips guide explains the most common causes.

Exporting Your Scan

After editing, the scan can be exported for the next step of your project. LiDAR Room Scanner exports both the 3D model and the floor plan in several formats:

Notes on choosing a format:

• USDZ is the standard 3D format on Apple platforms. It is a single file that opens in AR Quick Look, so anyone with an iPhone or iPad can view the room model with a tap. Room scans export as a parametric model with clean architectural geometry; objects from Object Capture export as a textured USDZ with the photographed surfaces.
• RoomPlan JSON contains the structured data of the scan: every wall, opening and object with its dimensions. Keep it if you may want to re-import a scan later or process it in your own software. For a comparison of the 3D formats, read USDZ vs OBJ vs RoomPlan JSON.
• DXF, PDF, SVG, PNG and CSV are the floor plan exports. DXF is the format for architects and drafters, because it opens in CAD as editable vectors. PDF works for anyone, SVG scales without loss in design tools and on the web, PNG is a simple image, and CSV lists the measurements for a spreadsheet. The guide to exporting iPhone floor plans to CAD covers the DXF workflow in detail.

All exports go through the iOS share sheet, so you can save a file to Files, send it to a Mac with AirDrop, email it or open it in another app. USDZ and RoomPlan JSON export is free; sharing the floor plan exports requires Pro. Because processing happens on the device, a scan only leaves your iPhone or iPad when you share it.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

Even with good technique, some rooms cause problems. These are the most common ones and how to fix them.

Walls are crooked or don't line up

This is almost always a matter of pace: the device moved too fast and the tracking drifted. Scan the section again slowly and pause at the corners. Small errors can be fixed in Geometry mode with grid snap turned on.

A window or door wasn't detected

RoomPlan needs a clear, deliberate view of openings. Make a slow pass while facing the door or window directly. If it is still missing, open the scan with Furnish in 3D, select the wall and add a doorway or window there. That is faster than scanning the whole room again.

A mirror or large window created phantom geometry

Reflective and transparent surfaces are the hardest case for LiDAR: the sensor sees through glass or is deflected by mirrors, which creates false depth. Avoid pointing straight at them. Afterwards, correct the affected walls in Geometry mode or delete a wall that does not exist in Furnish in 3D.

The room is too big and the scan drifts

RoomPlan is designed for single rooms, not whole floors. In very large or long open-plan spaces, small tracking errors add up over distance. Scan large areas as separate rooms or split a large space into sections, and keep each capture to a manageable size.

Furniture is missing or merged together

Pieces that stand close together or are covered by clutter can merge or go undetected. Clear what you can before scanning, make a slow pass over the furniture and correct the rest in Objects mode, where you can also add pieces from the catalog.

Tracking "lost" mid-scan

If the camera was covered, you moved too fast or you walked into a dark area, RoomPlan can lose its position. Stop, return to an area that is already captured, hold the device still until it finds its position again and then continue. Bright, even lighting prevents most of these interruptions.

More Tips for Better Room Scans

• Scan in one continuous loop. Walk along the walls in one smooth circuit instead of moving back and forth. One clean round gives the cleanest geometry.
• Include the ceiling line. Tilt the device up far enough to capture where the walls meet the ceiling, so wall heights come out right. This matters for tall windows and for calculating volume.
• Choose the capture mode for the furniture. Standard keeps detected furniture in the shape the scan captured. High Fidelity replaces it with clean, idealized models, which looks tidier in presentations. Walls, openings and measurement accuracy are the same in both modes.
• Record the location. With location access, scans are tagged with GPS and a true-north compass heading, so the floor plan is oriented correctly. This helps when orientation matters, for example for daylight studies or records of several units.
• Name scans right away. A library full of "Room 1, Room 2" becomes confusing quickly. Rename each scan immediately in the scan library; with Pro, you can also import existing RoomPlan JSON files.
• Review the result on site. Check the model before you leave, while you can still scan again. A missing wall is easier to fix in the room than back at your desk.

The tips guide covers how to get accurate iPhone LiDAR scans in more detail. If you are deciding between room LiDAR and photo-based capture for objects, LiDAR vs photogrammetry compares the two methods.

Start Scanning Your First Room

A measured plan of a room used to take a day of work or a specialist. With iPhone LiDAR and RoomPlan, it takes one slow walk through the room and a few taps: prepare the space, move the device steadily, follow the on-screen guidance, correct the plan in the editor and export it as USDZ, DXF, PDF, SVG or JSON. All of it is processed on your device.

LiDAR Room Scanner combines RoomPlan capture with on-screen guidance, a floor plan editor with three modes and all the export formats above, and the first three scans are free. Download it from the App Store, see all functions on the features page, follow the capture-to-export workflow and check the pricing for what is free and what Pro adds.