Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Develop 3-D Search Engine
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have developed new search engines that can mine catalogs of three-dimensional objects, like airplane parts or architectural features. All the users have to do is sketch what they're thinking of, and the search engines can produce comparable objects."
the user's ability to sketch. I used to teach an amature art class, most people can't even draw a recognizable hand.
Oh, wait
A 3D haystack!
If Slashdot started comparing the general shape of submitted articles maybe we would avoid a couple of dupes...
How long before the porn industry capitalizes on this one?
The possibilities are endless.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/04/142321 0&tid=
Ahhh I can see it now. The marketing types will have a field day with this one. Maybe they could incorporate Clippy into the program, to help out the drawing impared.
"I see you are trying to draw a monkey wearing what looks like a condom on it's head... May I assist you in finding such an item?"
"Click'
"Find books about Monkeys With Condoms on their Heads at Amazon.com"
"Find the lowest priced Monkey with Condoms on their heads with Price Grabber"
Bring it.
The researchers have released the most popular sketch submitted by beta testers who were asked to sketch what they're thinking of:
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> And they developed this for searching for
> "industrial objects". Riiighht.
I'll take the sinister uses with the good on this one. This is really exciting for engineers and tinkerers alike, because it means less time reinventing the proverbial wheel.
Let's say I need gizmoX but it's not manufactured anymore. Fuck! No knock-offs, either. The local CNC shop says they can make it for me but they need a model. 3D modeling could take a while unless you have something similar to start with.
So instead of PORING over an industrial parts catalog and missing the one close-enough part you needed but didn't expect to find under "444_T91_fillets" or whatever, you just search for matches using dimensions, materials, etc. Just a few minor tweaks to the mesh, export, send to the shop, and you just saved a lot of time.
That said - the design and manufacturing industries have been writing ad hoc programs for searching for parts and tooling since the proliferation of computers, but it's nice to see that a general-purpose algorithm that could be more or less universally applicable is evolving from the efforts thus far.