Niantic bought the LiDAR scanning application Scaniverse, aiming to create a 3D map of the world

Niantic Labs Earlier it was announced that it has officially acquired the LiDAR scanning application on the iOS platform Scaniverse. In the future, Scaniverse will remain on the App Store, and features that previously cost $17 for an annual subscription to be used will also become free and open. In addition, Niantic also promised to continue to support the software and launch more feature updates.

Like several other recent acquisitions, Niantic’s purpose of buying Scaniverse is still to serve its goal of creating a 3D map of the world. As part of this transaction, Scaniverse founder Keith Ito will join Niantic’s AR engineering team. “After joining forces, we hope to combine Niantic’s dynamic mapping and Scaniverse’s LiDAR reconstruction technology to bring 3D scanning to new heights.” Ito said.

According to Niantic, with the support of Scaniverse, “multi-system scanning will become easier”, and “Niantic Explorer community can also make better use of these technologies.” In the future, such as “Pokémon Go”, “Harry Potter: The Wizarding League” and new works that Niantic has not released yet, should all benefit from this acquisition.