Running a survey
A survey is the core of ARRF: you walk a space and signal-coloured cubes drop where you measured. This page covers the survey lifecycle and the on-screen controls.
The survey lifecycle
Section titled “The survey lifecycle”In words: you choose a source and a capture mode in the lobby. A demo walk starts immediately; a live survey first probes SSH on each AP and refuses to start if none answer, or lets you Start anyway with the unreachable ones skipped. You walk, cubes drop, and Stop ends the run — snapshotting the LiDAR mesh into a floor plan if one was captured, then saving to History. With three or more points the Results screen opens on its own; with one or two you get a brief note instead. If the write to storage fails, ARRF says so and offers Retry or Open anyway rather than losing the walk silently.
The Survey lobby
Section titled “The Survey lobby”The Survey tab opens on a lobby with two choices:
- Where — the survey source: a Demo (simulated) walk, a RUCKUS One venue, or Manual AP IPs. See Demo mode and Connecting your APs.
- How — the Capture mode (below).
Tap Start Survey to begin. For a live survey ARRF first runs a pre-flight — a bare SSH-port probe of each AP — and shows which answered. If none answer, you’ll see “Can’t reach your APs” and can’t start; if only some answer, you can Start anyway and offline APs are skipped.
Capture modes
Section titled “Capture modes”Pick the mode in the lobby’s How card. You can switch mid-survey.
| Mode | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Continuous (default) | Walk and a cube drops automatically per reading — hands-free, no tapping. | Fast coverage of a space. |
| Stop & sample | Stand still, tap the Capture button, and one cube drops on the next fresh reading. | Deliberate, accurate spot measurements. |
Placement throttle
Section titled “Placement throttle”To keep the AR scene readable, ARRF spaces cubes out. Two floors apply in Continuous mode, both set in Settings → Survey & capture:
- Placement throttle — the minimum distance between cubes. Default 0.3 m.
- Live cube interval — the minimum time between cubes. Default 1.0 s.
Raise them for a sparser map, lower them for denser sampling.
The AR HUD
Section titled “The AR HUD”While surveying, the camera view carries a heads-up display:
- Cube count — a large running total of cubes placed.
- Serving-AP chip — the AP your phone is currently associated to (in that AP’s outline colour), with its band, channel, and width.
- Signal readout — the current dBm, SNR, and grade, plus a live signal sparkline.
- Capture button (bottom centre) — in Stop & sample it arms the next cube; in Continuous it pauses/resumes the automatic sweep.
- Clear (trash) — removes all placed cubes from the view.
- Full screen — hides the HUD for an unobstructed camera view; capture keeps running. Tap again to exit.
- Colour, roam-marker, and Place APs chips (top right) — change what cubes encode, toggle roam posts, and open the AP-pinning sheet. See Cube colors, labels, and detail and AP locations and roaming.
- Tracking state — hints like “Move slower” or “Point at detail” when ARKit needs a better view to track.
slowed ×2/slowed ×4— a thermometer chip that appears only when the iPhone is thermally throttling. See Long walks and hot phones.
The screen stays awake for as long as a survey is running on screen — auto-lock would kill the AR session mid-sweep. Normal auto-lock returns when you stop, switch tabs, or background the app.
When AR is interrupted
Section titled “When AR is interrupted”Two banners can appear over the camera:
| Banner | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ”Camera paused — capture resumes when it’s back.” | A phone call or Control Center took the camera. Capture pauses deliberately, because a frozen pose would place cubes in the wrong spot. | Nothing — tracking relocalises against the saved world map and already-placed cubes stay put. |
| ”AR stopped: …” with Restart AR and Stop & save | A fatal ARSession error, such as the camera becoming unavailable or tracking failing unrecoverably. | Restart AR begins a fresh AR session; Stop & save ends the survey normally. Readings collected so far are kept either way. |
Long walks and hot phones
Section titled “Long walks and hot phones”Two guards keep a very long survey from degrading:
- Thermal backoff. When iOS reports thermal pressure, ARRF slows its AP polling — ×2 at serious and ×4 at critical — and shows a
slowed ×2orslowed ×4chip at the top of the screen. Cubes keep dropping, just further apart. Cooling the phone restores full rate on its own. - A 20,000-reading ceiling. Past 20,000 placed readings (roughly two hours of continuous capture), ARRF halves the set by keeping every other reading, newest always retained. Spatial coverage stays roughly uniform and the walk stays exportable; the survey is not truncated and does not stop.
Stopping and saving
Section titled “Stopping and saving”Tap the red Stop Survey button to end. Stop also saves:
- Every stopped survey with data is auto-saved to the History tab.
- With at least 3 points, the Results grade screen opens automatically. With fewer, you’ll see a brief “Saved to History (N points)” note and can reopen it from History any time.
- If the save itself fails, a “Survey not saved” alert offers Retry or Open anyway — see History and saved surveys.