W W W . K A A R T A . C O M
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F A Q S
What is the capacity of the Contour (hard drive)?
Contour has a 500 GB storage capacity.
How heavy is Contour?
Contour weighs just over 2.78 kg (just over 6 lbs). For prolonged scanning, and to prevent
accidentally dropping Contour, please use the included Contour neck strap. The neck strap
anchors into the ‘buttons’ attached to the neck strap lugs on the side of Contour. See Neck
Strap for more information.
Can you scan multiple floors in one building?
Contour’s software creates a unified pointcloud of the entire area scanned. If you scan each
floor separately, each floor would be a separate pointcloud. If you would like to combine
the pointclouds later, we would recommend including stairwells or parts of the floors above
or below. If you visit multiple floors during scanning, all floors will be in a single pointcloud.
No offline processing is required for this.
Does the unit contain an IMU or does it rely on a SLAM algorithm or a combination
of the two?
Yes, Contour includes an IMU and uses an algorithm designed to map while localizing and
vice versa. Our algorithms are arguably the best. Kaarta Engine currently holds the 1st and
2nd places in the KITTI Benchmark dataset for Visual Odometry / SLAM and were awarded
1st place in the 2016 and 2017 Microsoft Localization Challenge.
For almost 30 years people have been trying to solve the problem of using sensors to know
where it is and at the same time building a map in an unknown space. SLAM made progress
in that area but was fundamentally limited due to compounding errors. Kaarta Engine is a
revolutionary new approach to the problem and has substantial advantages over
traditional SLAM techniques.
How accurate are the scans generated by Contour?
Our precision is very good - repeatability is high, but overall accuracy is dependent on the
lidar itself which is about +/-3cm accuracy. We've had very good experience and when
measuring in a pointcloud using the center of wall points for example, we often see
