Slashdot Mirror
A Mobile Robot For Modeling The World In 3D
Roland Piquepaille writes "A German team from Fraunhofer AIS has coupled a fast autonomous robot with a 3D laser scanner to digitize the environment. The team reports about their work in this article, one of fifteen on the subject of machine perception published by ERCIM News. "Kurt3D is an autonomous mobile robot equipped with a reliable and precise 3D laser scanner that digitalizes environments. High quality geometric 3D maps with semantic information are automatically generated after the exploration by the robot." This overview tells you more about the four-step method used to generate 3D models with this robot and contains several pictures of Kurt3D and its 3D laser."
I have a client who's willing to pay one meelion dollars to the man who makes this robot look like a shark...
I think this robot could have many practical applications in the field of mapping out office buildings for inclusion in FPS games. Frag your coworkers!
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
From the article: "Precise digital 3D models of indoor environments are needed in several applications, eg, facility management, architecture, rescue and inspection robotics."
This made me chuckle, to think we'd be getting replacements for management, in the form of cute robots that can't talk.
I'm waiting for a robot I can fight martial arts with. Any chance of us getting one of those?
It's nice to hear things about stuff like Kurt3D. I remember when I used to think R2-D2 would be hela cool to have around as a buddy.
He could tweet and chirp away while I explained that moisture vaporators are not the same as carbon units.
Man, as if it's bad enough for builders that some architect can come around and harass you for being 1 inch off with a divider wall, now the architect will just send the robot down to measure out the entire building in 3d and point out any screwups!
I, for one, do NOT welcome our human form replicated robot overlords. Who's with me? John and Sarah Conner? That makes three. Who else?
I tried to get Kurt3D to create a laser scan of the Hall of Mirrors in my glass house, and the resulting mesh was almost complete gibberish.
Also, I am now blind.
Laser rays are not reflected by mirrors because they operate on a different wavelengths.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
another use:
Take a digitized model of your house and import it into Quake.