TDLiDAR
Turn an iPhone into ~40 live sensors inside TouchDesigner — with one drag-and-drop.
What it is
TDLiDAR is an iOS app plus a TouchDesigner operator family. The app streams everything a modern iPhone can sense — motion, LiDAR depth, body/hand/face tracking, audio, camera vision, touch and more — over your local network. The operators plug straight into your patch.
No networking knowledge required. No Python. Drop an op, point the phone, make visuals move.
Get started
Documentation →
Full guide — every mode, setting and operator, plus the OSC wire spec and FAQ.
App Store →
Install TDLiDAR on your iPhone. Free to try; Pro unlocks the LiDAR/depth sensors.
Operator Family →
The TouchDesigner tdlidar_* operators — one drag-in .tox, ~40 ops in the TAB menu.
Install Guide →
Five-minute setup: get the app, drop the family, connect on the same network.
How it works
Motion, body, face, audio, touch and more travel as OSC on UDP 9000.
Depth visuals and camera stream as NDI straight into a TOP.
Up to 50k lossless XYZ+RGB points over TCP into a POP.
The phone and the computer just need to be on the same network. Drop an operator, point the phone, and the tile shows live data.
Not on TouchDesigner? TDLiDAR's Point Cloud and Mesh Cloud modes also drive Blender, Unity, Unreal Engine (via their add-ons) and Arkestra — the same lossless point cloud, live.
What the iPhone can sense
- Motion — accel, gyro, attitude, magnetometer
- LiDAR depth + scene mesh (Pro models)
- Body, hand & face tracking
- Point cloud capture & streaming
- Audio level, beat, speech & sound ID
- Camera vision — QR, OCR, saliency, planes
- Touch, Apple Pencil, proximity, NFC
- AirPods & Apple Watch motion