How to capture a property's 3D tour

What you'll need

Polycam ships two capture modes — LiDAR and Photo. For interior spaces, LiDAR is the right choice: on-device processing in under a minute, no upload wait, no bandwidth used. Photo mode is for objects, not rooms, so skip it for property scans.

• iPhone Pro or iPad Pro from 2020 or newer — the LiDAR sensor is what powers the scan. iPhone 12 Pro and up qualify; standard iPhones do NOT.
• The Polycam app — free download from the App Store. LiDAR captures work on the free tier.
• Full battery — a large multi-room scan can use ~15% in one session.
• Optional but useful: a selfie stick / gimbal for high ceilings and tall subjects.

Prep the space before you start

Ten minutes of preparation buy you a much better scan and save you re-shooting later.

• Turn on every light and open every blind. The LiDAR sensor works in dim light but colour quality drops fast — a bright, evenly-lit space produces the walkthrough you actually want to show buyers.
• Clear walking paths. Move loose bags, cables, and clutter out of every room. You'll need to walk the perimeter of each space without stopping.
• Open all interior doors so they don't block the scan between rooms.
• Cover or skip large mirrors and glass. Reflective and transparent surfaces confuse the LiDAR and create phantom holes in the model. A towel over a full-length mirror is enough.
• Plan your route. Divide the property into logical sections. Move in a smooth S-pattern rather than big loops — it minimises the overlap the app has to reconcile.

The capture itself — how to move

The single best thing you can do for scan accuracy is start in a corner. Then move slowly, steadily, and let the app track. Rushing is the number-one cause of drift (misaligned walls in the final model).

• Start in a corner, never in the middle of a wall. Aim your phone at the opposite corner near the floor — this gives LiDAR clear vertical + horizontal reference points and locks orientation immediately.
• Move slow and steady. Walk the perimeter of each room at a deliberate pace. If the mesh preview looks weird, stop for a moment and let it catch up before moving on.
• Watch the on-screen feedback. Blue overlay = LiDAR coverage in that area. When blue fades in a spot, that spot is documented. White outlines show detected walls / floor plan boundaries.
• Scan floor to ceiling. Don't only capture at eye level. Tilt up to catch ceiling corners, tilt down to catch floor-to-wall joints. This is how the app calculates room height + volume.
• Get close for detail, but not too close. Around 1-2 metres from surfaces is the sweet spot. Too close causes drift.
• If tracking is lost, stop moving. Slowly pan the phone around the room. Polycam will relocalise and continue.
• Keep individual sessions under 30 minutes. For a large villa or multi-storey building, use Polycam's Extend tool to capture in sections rather than one long scan.
• Use a selfie stick for high ceilings or to reach the top of stairwells you can't physically get to.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Moving too fast — the single biggest cause of drifted walls in the final model.
• Starting mid-wall — the LiDAR has no reference points and orientation locks in badly.
• Big loops around the middle of the room — S-patterns from wall to wall reconcile better.
• Skipping the ceiling or floor sweeps — the app can't compute room height, and the walkthrough feels flat.
• Scanning uncovered mirrors and windows — they become holes in the model.
• One 45-minute mega-session — device memory + processing struggle. Break into 20-minute chunks via Extend.
• Dim rooms — colour quality tanks. Turn lights on.

Export from Polycam, upload to makan

When the whole space has been covered (no blue overlay remaining), tap Done. Polycam processes the scan — for a single room, on-device takes about a minute. For multi-room captures, cloud processing gives a cleaner final mesh; it takes a few minutes but the result is worth the wait.

• In Polycam, open your capture and tap Export.
• Choose glTF / GLB format — that's what makan reads.
• Save to Files or share via AirDrop / email to your desktop.
• On makan, go to + New listing (or Edit on an existing one).
• Drop the `.glb` file into the upload wizard. Our optimiser then compresses it with Draco + Meshopt so it streams cleanly to buyers on 4G.
• Fill in the listing details and publish. The 3D tour appears at the top of the listing page, side-by-side with the cover photo.

Not sure? Try a scan of your own home first before you offer the workflow to a buyer. Two or three practice runs, and the technique is muscle memory.