To accomplish this AR feat, Pokemon GO players will soon by gaining access to Pokestop scanning. This is similar to a feature that Ingress players are already familiar with. Basically, the community will have the opportunity to use their phone camera to walk around a point of interest (Gym or Pokestop) and capture some footage of the real 3D space. This will help Niantic better understand each location and eventually will result in a more interactive world for AR Pokemon to run around.

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The feature isn’t live in Pokemon GO yet, but Niantic’s community is already offering some tips to help players who are new to scanning get a hang of things. The following Dos and Don’ts were shared by NianticBrian on the Ingress Community forums and the list seems like a great place for players to start thinking about how to approach scanning. More so than ever, the number one tip is going to be stay aware of your surroundings and be safe!

Pokestop Scanning Tips

Here are some tips on how to scan different types of Portals to provide the most useful information to our team:

Please stay aware of your surroundings. Remember to watch where you’re moving. You can look away from the screen because keeping the Portal within the frame doesn’t need to be perfect, and you can submit multiple Portals Scans of that Portal.

The Portal should be the main focus of scans, but it’s also helpful to have some of the surrounding area included, especially for smaller Portals. Specifically: Point your camera towards the Portal while moving around it or near it. Consider moving in an orbit around the Portal. The orbit can be circular, navigating around the accessible surfaces of the Portal, or it can be more broad, where you approach the Portal from a distance and scan it as you approach.

Multiple Portal Scans of the same Portal help us build better AR maps, especially when taken from different viewpoints, at different times of day, and with different lighting conditions. More Portal Scanning coverage correlates with more places and times of day that AR features can work robustly.

Portal Scans of longer durations are typically easier to combine than many short Portal Scans.

Move along public paths or walkways near the Portal. While the main focus of the Portal Scan should be the Portal itself, please stay on public paths or walkways near the Portal or surrounding area.

Flat Portals (murals; memorial plaques; signage; etc.): Face the Portal and walk laterally from one side to the other. If the Portal itself is small, like a memorial plaque on a bench, please scan the entire bench versus the memorial plaque only.

Medium Portals (statues; playground structures; informational signs; etc.): Walk 360 degrees around the Portal, if possible.

Large Portals (historical building; athletic fields; etc.): While staying within range of the Portal, move laterally across the faces of the structure or building. Before starting your next Portal Scan of the same large Portal, take two steps back to overlap your new Portal Scan with your previous one. If the Portal is a park or athletic field, try to focus on free-standing elements that are most representative of that Portal. If you are able to continue Portal Scanning further, you can connect free-standing elements by getting two or more of them filmed in the same Portal Scan.

Additionally, while it’s better to upload Portal Scans without obstructions or people between the Agent and the Portal, we understand that this is sometimes unavoidable. We automatically check every Portal Scan to blur faces, license plates, and other identifying information.

Things to avoid while scanning Pokestops

A few things to avoid, if possible:

Standing stationary and making a circular hand motion (“wax on, wax off”) is not as useful as Portal Scans made while walking 10 or more steps from your starting position.

Portal Scans in extreme darkness may not include enough usable information.

Blurry Portal Scans. This can sometimes be improved by wiping the lens, tapping the Portal on-screen before scanning, or moving more slowly.

For now, players may want to keep hunting down the best Unova Pokemon in the game if improving their Battle Raid rosters is their primary goal. Be sure to check back in the near future for more Pokemon GO strategy guides, news, and updates. Until then, good luck out there, trainers!

Pokemon GO is available now in select regions on Android and iOS devices.

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Source: Ingress Community Forums