How to Scan

Getting Set Up to Scan

The BoviPhIT app uses LiDAR technology to create our 3D images. This upgraded camera is available on all iPhone Pro and Max models version 12 and later.

The BoviPhIT app is designed to work entirely offline. If you don't have one of the lidar-equipped models, or just don't want to put your personal phone at risk, you can always purchase a used iPhone and use it to scan without ever putting it on your phone plan. Used phones can be purchased directly from Apple or other resellers (Walmart, eBay, etc) often for under $300. Be sure to purchase an "Unlocked" phone not directly connected to a carrier like Verizon or AT&T, and when you set it up simply skip the section where you provide your phone number and use your Apple ID instead.

There are a handful of accessories that we also recommend to make your scans better, faster, and safer. See our amazon shopping list for recommendations. Those items are:

1. Selfie Stick — Give yourself better reach for topline scans, and avoid squatting down or getting underneath your cows for hoof scans. We recommend a stick with a bluetooth button that will allow you to stop and start scans while your stick is fully extended without having to bend down to tap your screen.
2. Power Pack — If your iPhone's battery is healthy you should have sufficient power to scan for several hours (and then recharge at lunch). Add a standard power pack with a 6ft cable and you can scan all day.
3. Windshield Scraper — A cow's hoof doesn't need to be showing perfect to scan. But if mud or manure are caked onto the hoof or leg, you will need to remove that obstruction to reveal the underlying anatomy. These scrapers are particularly handy for cleaning out between the toes, or brushing off excess manure.
4. Cabinet Lights — LiDAR works in the dark, but you'll need enough light to color your scans to make them look good. If you are working in a dark chute, we've found that usb-rechargeable under cabinet lights are easy to stick to the bottom of the chute with their magnetic clips and add plenty of light to scans underneath the cow.

How to Scan

A LiDAR camera is basically just a little grid of lasers that shoot out from your phone, hit a solid object in space, and then bounce back to the camera sensor. How long it takes to return tells the phone how far away that object is. Move that grid around an object, and you can build up a dense 3d scan of exactly where it sits in space.

Here are some tricks and tips we've found to get better scans:

1. You can scan any part of your cow that they will stand still for. But they must be in the same position for the frames of the LiDAR to stitch together properly. We recommend keeping scans under 5s, and most can be completed in ~1s, to help insure there's no time for wiggling.
2. Move FASTER. No really, those laser beams are moving at the speed of light, we promise you can't out-pace them. Also our algorithm uses info from your phone's gyro to help patch frames together, so you need to move. See our video to see how fast we can create a scan.
3. Don't be Redundant. You want the LiDAR grid to capture your cow's anatomy from multiple angles to build up a robust scan. A little circle around a geometrically detailed area is perfect. But one or two passes around the same area will be plenty. More than this and all you add is measurement noise at the risk of the cow moving.
4. Keep it smooth. Speed is fine, but if you jostle your phone mid scan by bumping it against the side of the chute, then the frames will get jostled and the scan won't line up. If your phone gets kicked or knocked around in the chute quite hard by accident, this may tumble the phone's gyros and we recommend turning your phone off and on to reset them and ensure scan quality.
5. A little bit of light helps. The LiDAR will work in the dark, but adding enough light by turning on the flashlight button on the app, or adding lights physically to your chute, will help make cleaner and easier to annotate scans.

See our video to walk through the app as we create a scan.

Hoof Scans Explained

To extract all the measurements from a 3D hoof scan necessary to generate a hoof score, you need to capture the front and at least one side of the hoof. If you don't have room to scan the lateral (outside) claw, then reaching around with a selfie stick to scan the medial (inside) claw often works better. We recommend you start at the heel bulb, swing forward to the toe, do a small circle around the front of the foot, and either stop the scan or swing around to the other heel if possible. This should take <2s.

Here are the main points of failure to think about to generate accurate scans:

1. Solid flooring. If the hoof is sitting on a grate, the lidar lasers will go through and never come back up. If you must scan on such a surface, like in a chute, we recommend putting down something like conveyor belt or the rubber garage mats you find in big box stores to make a solid surface.
2. Flat ground. The ground underneath and immediately around the hoof must be reasonably flat to get a good estimate of the ground plane. Uneven flooring like rocks or rebar may alter the angle of the hoof or cause the toes to splay excessively. If you must scan in a chute with rebar, we suggest cutting horse stall shims to slide in between the rebar to make a level but still reasonably grippy floor (just slide them in — no need to attach — consider getting a carpet cutting attachment for an oscillating multitool to cut them quickly and safely).
3. (Reasonably) Natural Position. Our metrics are fairly robust, but if they are standing weird to your eye, the algorithm may also get confused. If scanning in a chute we recommend avoiding a breast bar if possible. If possible, scanning in the lead up prior to the chute often allows for more natural weight bearing. If a cow is pulling excessively against the head catch in a chute, we recommend releasing them and just applying a squeeze to scan.

See our demo video of how we scan feet, and some examples of scans pre- and post-cloud processing.