I may have been guilty of premature whining with April's "Smartphone-Enabled 3D Replicators Are Still 3-5 Years Away, Caltech Professor Says":
I want my iPhone 3D replicator NOW!
But no, it's always nanophotonic coherent imager tomorrow, never nanophotonic coherent imager today.*From Microsoft Research's The Firehose blog:
Microsoft Research project turns mobile phone into 3D scanner through MobileFusion
A new Microsoft Research project delivers high-quality 3D images in real time, using a regular mobile phone, with about the same effort it takes to snap a picture or capture a video.
“What this system effectively allows us to do is to take something similar to a picture, but it’s a full 3D object,” said Peter Ondruska, a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University who worked on the project while he was an intern at Microsoft Research.
The researchers say the system, called MobileFusion, is better than other methods for 3D scanning with a mobile device because it doesn’t need any extra hardware, or even an Internet connection, to work. That means scientists in remote locations or hikers deep in the woods can capture their surroundings using a cellphone, without a Wi-Fi connection. Head over to Inside Microsoft Research to find out more about MobileFusion....MOREAnd via TechNet:
- Read more about MobileFusion (5.6 MB .pdf)
- Learn more about Microsoft Research's Interactive 3D Technologies group
