Who Wants a 3D Scanner, Anyway?

splineboy asks: "In June 2002 a sun-starved computer engineer walked into a small room armed with an old PC, a 20 year-old video camera, some lasers, glass rods and an awful lot of duct tape. His mission was to create a program capable of converting a real world object into a computer model that could be manipulated, stored and eventually reproduced using stereolithography. After several hours of gluing, taping and generally walloping things with a hammer, Project Splinescan was born. Originally running on a batterd old machine (AMD-500), the prototype scanner proved the concept of low cost 3D scanning with a few rough scans. Now that a stable, multi-platform 3D scanning solution is on the horizon (even high school kids are building their own) - a question rings clear through the ether: 'OK, you proved you can make it work, but what's it good for?'" "What are the potential uses of a portable, low cost 3D scanner? Medical? Animation? Special Effects? Archeology? Ceramics? Lego Modelling? I've got my ideas about why 3D scanning seems to be getting so popular, but how would you like to see these projects developed in the future?"

Comments

The rest of the story...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Unfortunately, soon after his triumph, his most brilliant computer game designs were stolen by one of his company's executives, who passed them off as his own. After breaking into the corporate building and hacking into the computer network to attempt to locate evidence of the theft, he mysteriously vanished, and was not heard from for some time. Eventually, he resurfaced, spouting wild tales about 'talking to programs' and 'surviving the game grid', but bearing concrete evidence of the executive's misdeeds. The prevailing explanation for his bizzare behavior is chronic drug abuse. Whatever the reason, he persists in such delusional beliefs to this day.

Find out more about his tragic story in this compelling and informative docudrama.

Why?

[FunkyRat]

Custom tailored clothes ordered online.

Combined with some NCR cutting equipment the cost could be brought down quite low.

Re:Why?

[mvdw]

Ahhh, yes, I can see it now:

"Just remove all your clothes, and step in front of the, errm, laser scanner, madam - it will take your pict- I mean, measurements, so we can have a perfect model of you..."

Film Industry

[Zimok]

LOTR used this technique alot, to scan molds of armor and the orcs used in CG art.. ect

Aside from just game modeling...

[Xaroth]

As someone who works (more or less) within the hearing aid industry, I can tell you right now that 3D scanners are the Next Big Thing (tm) in custom medical products.

The ability to take a mold for any sort of custom prostethic - be it an ear mold, arch support, or whatever - and then transmit that mold electronically rather than having to physically mail it is tremendous. I mean, shipping companies won't appreciate losing all that business, but any healthcare professional that has to deal with mailing dozens of custom molds a week will be overjoyed at the ability to send those scans around for free at any time of the day, and be able to trim another 2-3 days off the custom prothesis creation timeline.

I mean, aside from the obvious speed gains that could be had for 3D modeling for movies and games.

The leader will be

[JustOK]

porn. Of course.