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Software Converts 2D Images To 3D

eldavojohn writes "Dr. David McKinnon from Queensland University of Technology, has recently launched a site that turns your sets of 2D images into 3D bump maps by way of 8 years of his research. The catch is that you need to have between five and fifteen photos of your object and they must overlap at least 80 to 90 percent. So with a video of an object, one might be able to extract every nth frame and use this site to generate a 3D model. Doctor McKinnon said, 'The full version of this software would be great for realistic learning simulators and training software, where you want everything to look like the real thing. This technology could also be great for museums wishing to turn their display objects into 3D images that can be viewed online. We are even looking into making 3D models of cows to save farmers spending thousands of dollars transporting their cattle vast distances to auction sites, allowing for an eBay style auction website for cattle. Films, animations and computer games could also benefit, since 3D film making is taking over from the traditional 2D method of filmmaking. Another application is allowing people to create 3D models of their own face to use on their avatar in computer games or 3D social networking sites such as Second Life or Sony's Home.' Physorg has more details."

5 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Cows are fractal . . . by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Interesting
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    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  2. Re:VERY, VERY by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is impossible to in general extract a true 3D image from a single 2D image. There are ambiguous cases. In fact, there are even ambiguous cases for two images. When one uses CAD and such to make 3D out of 2D images one is making implicit choices (generally using heuristics about how the objects are likely shaped). One can however use multiple images from slightly different angles to extract a close to unambiguous result. However, doing that is not easy and that seems to be what they are doing here.

  3. Mr Santax by santax · · Score: 4, Funny

    is uploading about 15000 pics of Halle Berry as we speak. Man I'm gonna have a blast tonight!

  4. Re:Why bother by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Funny

    Every mathematician knows you can't get a 3D view from a 2D one. Like the old joke says ...

    Three long-time friends meet up in Scotland. One is a biologist, one's a physicist, and one's a mathematician. As they're driving away from the airport into the Scottish countryside, they see a brown cow off in the distance.

    The biologist says, "Wow, that's amazing! All the cows in Scotland are brown!"

    The physicist replies, "No, all we really know is that some cows in Scotland are brown."

    The mathematician replies, "No, all we really know is: there is at least one cow in Scotland, and this side is brown."

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    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  5. Re:VERY, VERY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This guy has wasted his life. ... There are dozens of programs that do this for various prices. Even better, they only require ONE image.

    Okay, smart-ass, here's your ONE image.