AR Planes — tdlidar_planes

A live “how much of the room have I mapped?” meter — fire a cue the moment enough floor or wall has been detected.

Category: Camera & Vision · Tier: Free · Needs: ARKit (LiDAR device recommended for fast plane detection)

What it does

As the phone looks around, ARKit finds flat surfaces — floors, walls, tables — and grows them into planes. This op streams two running totals: how many planes have been found, and their combined area in square metres. Together they make a simple progress signal: the more the performer scans, the higher the numbers climb. Use it to know when the room is “mapped enough” to start.

OSC in

| address | type | range | rate | |—|—|—|—| | /tdlidar/scene/plane_count | float | number of detected planes | on change / low Hz | | /tdlidar/scene/plane_area_m2 | float | total plane area, square metres | on change / low Hz |

Outputs

out1 (CHOP) with channels tdlidar/scene/plane_count and tdlidar/scene/plane_area_m2.

Parameters

| par | default | what it does | |—|—|—| | OSC Port | 9000 | UDP port to listen on (match the app) |

Quick start (beginner)

  1. In the app, enable AR Planes and start streaming. Slowly pan the phone across the floor/walls.
  2. Drop the AR Planes op. Confirm OSC Port is 9000.
  3. Watch tdlidar/scene/plane_area_m2 climb as more surface is detected.
  4. Wire plane_area_m2 through a Math/Range CHOP (e.g. 0→20 m² mapped to 0→1) into a progress bar TOP, or onto a Text TOP via a CHOP to DAT to read the live count.

Advanced patterns

  • “Room ready” trigger. A Logic CHOP (or Trigger CHOP) on plane_area_m2 > threshold fires a one-shot pulse when enough surface exists — use it to auto-advance from a “scanning…” screen to the live show.
  • Progress meter. Range CHOP the area into 0–1 and drive a radial/linear progress visual so the audience sees the room filling in.
  • Stabilise the count. plane_count can wobble as ARKit merges/splits planes; a Lag CHOP or a small >= Logic with hysteresis stops a flickering trigger.
  • Combine with AR Mesh. Pair plane area with tdlidar_armesh face counts for a richer “scan completeness” estimate than either alone.

Gotchas

  • These are cumulative totals, not per-surface data — you get how much, not which planes or where. For geometry, that’s the Mesh / Scene Build path.
  • plane_count can go down when ARKit merges two planes into one; don’t assume it only rises. Threshold on area for stability.
  • Updates are low-rate / on-change, so don’t expect smooth 60 Hz motion — treat it as a slow meter, not an animation source.