Performance evaluation of smartphone-based LiDAR for indoor 3D modelling applications
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/gac.2026.25678Abstract
The increasing availability of smartphone-based LiDAR sensors is providing new opportunities for low-cost indoor three-dimensional (3D) modelling but the geometric accuracy remains a concern. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the performance of iPhone LiDAR for indoor 3D modelling through a direct comparison with Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) data acquired with a Leica BLK360. Point clouds were registered using the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm to produce registration residuals of 0.025–0.043 m. The quality of the point clouds was assessed using point density, surface roughness, and eigenvalue-derived curvature metrics. The iPhone LiDAR generated point densities of 485–610 points/m² which was substantially lower than the 2,485 points/m² for TLS and also exhibited higher surface roughness of 0.0116 compared to 0.0019 for TLS. Moreover, curvature values were also higher for iPhone LiDAR at 0.0878 than for 0.0321 for TLS which reflected a reduction in planar stability. Geometric accuracy analysis produced a paired dimensional RMSE of 0.182 m relative to the TLS reference. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed no statistically significant difference between the two datasets at the 95% confidence level.
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Smartphone-based LiDAR, indoor mapping, 3D modelling, TLS, low-cost mapping, point cloud accuracyHow to Cite
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Copyright (c) 2026 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
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Copyright (c) 2026 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
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