The iPhone that you have in your pocket can a lot more than just taking photos and videos, browsing social media, surfing the internet and playing Apple Arcade games. It can change the lives of animals.
Apple has collaborated with 3DPets, an organisation based in New Jersey, U.S., to leverage the power of the iPhone to give pups a new lease on life like Cleo, Samson, Trip, and Eve by creating custom-fit 3D-printed prostheses.
Using the power of the LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) Scanner and TrueDepth front camera on iPhone along with a few third party apps, 3DPets is able to capture the intricate depth information needed to customise each prostheses to the individual animal’s size and shape. This includes animals other than dogs like ducks, pigs, goats, and even turtles!
What is LiDAR and TrueDepth?
Essentially, LiDAR is a ranging device, which measures the distance to a target. The distance is measured by sending a short laser pulse and recording the time lapse between outgoing light pulse and the detection of the reflected (back-scattered) light pulse.
The underlying principle of the TrueDepth camera involves projecting numerous imperceptible dots onto a face and subsequently interpreting these dots to generate a facial depth map. Additionally, the camera captures an infrared facial image to enhance the precision of facial data.
Subsequently, the neural engine within the Bionic chip comes into play, converting the acquired depth map and infrared image into a mathematical depiction of the face.
Using these technologies available on the iPhone 14 Pro, 3DPets was able to create perfect prosthetics that fit the dogs very well, enabling them to once again walk and run freely.
