Hanging out at DEMO@15 today. Lots of cool stuff.
Marc Orchant and a couple others are feverishly blogging the conference live at BloggingDemo.com.
My favorite product demo so far? Well, it’s more of a technology than a product at this point, but MDA (the same folks that work on the space shuttle robot arm) showcased a handheld stereo-camera-based 3D scanner. Simply amazing.
The operator simply waved the handheld camera unit over whatever is to be digitized and from the image sequence the system is able to build a 3D model that you can rotate around.
The technology is similar to that used in the Mars rover.
The technique appears to use a stereoscopic motion technique. You’re also able to extract dimenstions from the generated 3D scenes.
I’m wondering if the cameras in the handlheld unit are parallel. Hmm. I’m trying to recall the math possible with stereoscopic motion techniques. I have to go check this out.
This is the type of technology that can really change the way you think about using computers–or better stated what types of things you might think about doing with a computer. What if you wanted to zoom around a 3D model of a room you want to decorate? Now you’d have a ton or work to do to create a model you could use. Looks like this technology would get you there faster–so fast that it changes what you even consider doing.
Robert Scoble has his take too and rightly calls it a “small thing.”