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Point. Drop. Know your fall. This page describes what the app does today.

What you need

To scan, you need an iPhone with LiDAR (iPhone 12 Pro or later Pro / Pro Max, or an iPad Pro with LiDAR), running iOS 18 or later. Scanning uses ARKit scene reconstruction, which those sensors provide and other iPhones do not.

To receive, view, edit and reply to a 3D model that someone sends you, any recent iPhone works — no LiDAR needed. An Android version does not exist yet.

Quick start

Scan — sweep the camera slowly over the work area. The mesh overlay shows coverage: red means get closer, green means good. Green mesh measures more accurately.
Drop your first pin — aim the reticle at the START of your run (the high end / head of the pipe) and tap Drop. Flow is read in the order you drop.
Drop the rest — work along the run, dropping a pin at each point you care about. Fall, length and the verdict update as you go.
Read the verdict — the card at the top gives you the answer first.

The verdict

ON TARGET — every drop pin falls, and the run meets the target gradient you set (default 1:80). Shows your spare fall.
TOO FLAT — the run falls, but not enough. Shows how much more fall you need over the measured span.
WON'T DRAIN — a drop pin sits HIGHER than the one before it, so water can't flow. The message names the pin and the amount. Lower it, or grab and move it.

Settings → Fall target picks the default for new scans, including the common AS/NZS 3500 grades, or a rate you type yourself. Prefer ratios and slope percentages over plain words? Turn Simple readout off. Units follows your region on Auto.

Verdicts compare your measurements against the target you set. They are field arithmetic, not an assessment against any plumbing code or standard. Verify critical or regulated work with a laser level or other certified equipment.

Controls

Bottom row, left to right:

Control	Tap	Hold
Undo	Undo the last item placed	Clear everything and recalibrate tracking
Ruler	Stand a vertical ruler at the reticle	—
Drop	Drop a pin at the reticle	Finish this run and start a new one
Drop (reticle over an existing pin)	Drops a new pin	Grab that pin — aim, release to move it
Photo	Take a photo into the 3D model	Speak a voice note; slide left to lock the mic
ReMesh	Repaint the visible mesh	Clear the scan and mesh again — your pins stay

The small ✕ on the Drop button ends the current run without starting another.

Top row: Torch (light for dark trenches) · Jobs (save, load, share) · 3D (open the current scan in the 3D viewer) · Share (send to a Trusted Contact, or export) · Settings.

Drop pin label — tap for detail, Lock and Delete. The last pin of a run also has Continue from here, which makes that run the one you are drawing again. Locked pins can't be moved or grabbed.
Drop on an existing pin — Extended Run keeps drawing that run from its last pin; New Run leaves it and starts a fresh string. Dropping on the first pin of the run you are already drawing still closes an AREA.
Ruler callout — tap to read every drop pin's height against that ruler. One ruler marks the heights of all the pins in the job, so it can go anywhere.
Areas — when a run has three pins or more, AREA Available appears. Drop a pin on that run's first pin to close it. Set a fill depth on it to get a volume. End a run, then Continue from another run's last pin, to close a second area. After Load or LIVE the next drop starts a new run unless you Continue from a last pin.
The AREA card — CANCEL, the area name (tap to rename) and SAVE across the top, then the area, then FILL DEPTH. Fill is always cyan. Totals, the leg-by-leg measurements, Photo/Share and Delete are under the More chevron. The card sits high enough that the depth stays visible with the keypad up.
Tap anywhere on screen to close an open panel.

Colours

Each drop pin has its own identification colour, used on its pin, label dot, ruler marker, table row and profile dot.
Red / orange / green outlines show confidence. GREEN indicates a more accurate measurement — not exact results. Get closer and hold steady to improve it.
The fall figure on a label is bright amber so it stays readable over the mesh. The small dot next to it is the colour of the pin it is measured from.
Live coaching says PIN in blue and AREA in gold. Those lines fade after a few seconds. While it says drop a PIN, the Drop button pulses. A closable run shows AREA Available, then the smaller Drop PIN on first PIN to close AREA.
Closing a run flashes AREA Created with the area under it, and a Set FILL depth button. FILL is cyan wherever it appears.

Saved jobs and going back to site

Save from Jobs. Reopen a job on site and tap Load, then point the phone at the area you scanned — the drop pins line up in their real positions. This takes a few seconds and needs you to stand roughly where you scanned from.

Jobs record a GPS position when one is available. If you open a job somewhere else entirely, the app starts fresh rather than drawing an old scan over the wrong place.

The 3D viewer

Every scan becomes a 3D model you can open offline. Drag to orbit, use the pad to pan, recentre and zoom, and tap a drop pin to open it. Hold anywhere on the model for a menu that drops a photo, voice note, pin or line on that spot.

Sending a model to someone

estiM8r sends jobs app-to-app between Trusted Contacts. You establish trust with a person once — by scanning their QR code, typing a short code, or sending them a link — and after that sending is one tap.

The job itself is encrypted so only the contact you chose can open it. Their copy opens in the 3D viewer, they can mark it up, add photos and voice notes, and send it back. They do not need LiDAR to do any of that. Job cards on both phones show by the person who scanned and updated by whoever last sent it.

Relayed items pass through estiM8r's iCloud-based mailbox, which needs you signed in to iCloud. Full detail of what that stores is in the privacy policy.

Alerts. A job arriving, and anything to do with trust, will alert you with estiM8r closed or the phone locked. The Delivered and Accepted receipts for jobs you sent are different — they appear when you next open estiM8r, so a receipt dated a while back may be news to you the moment you open the app. Check the bell in the top bar for the full list. Notification permission is asked for the first time you send or receive, and a silenced ringer will mute the sound while still showing the banner.

What costs money

Free, with no purchase and no account: unlimited drop pins, whole runs, areas and fill volumes, rulers, live verdicts, the fall-profile graph, saving and reloading jobs, and the 3D viewer. If someone sends you a job, viewing it, marking it up and sending it back is also free and works without LiDAR.

estiM8r Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks getting a job off the phone: PDF report with the annotated fall profile, CSV, image and text export, sealed .estim8r send to Trusted Contacts, and 3D model export (OBJ / USDZ).

estiM8r Collab is a subscription for running a job with other people over time — round-trip edits, with voice notes and photos embedded on the model in both directions. It includes the Pro features while it is active. The monthly plan starts with a free month. Cancel any time in your Apple account settings.

Restore Purchases is in Settings → Account. Prices are shown in the app in your own currency; refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.

If something looks wrong

Pins or mesh look misplaced → hold Undo to clear and recalibrate.
Mesh stopped filling in → tap ReMesh. In poor light, try the Torch.
Camera frozen → wait a few seconds, or reopen the app.
Phone hot → normal during LiDAR scanning. The app pauses itself when idle.
Anything else → Settings → Report an issue. Describe it (hold the mic to speak) and tap Generate and Send. Diagnostic logs are attached for you; you choose whether to send.

Contact

[email protected] — support, feedback and feature requests.