April 20, 2011

Create animated videos with the new 3D scanner iPhone application

by Shalu Pillai

Now you can take 3-D scans of faces and objects on your iPhone 4, iPad 2 or the iPod Touch for just 99 cents. A iPhone app developer, Grant Schindler, research scientist in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, has created Trimensional, the first app that allows users to take 3-D scans of faces or other objects and share them by e-mail. Users can also e-mail animated videos of their 3-D models. An upgraded version (for a few dollars more) will allow artists and designers to export their creation to CAD programs or 3-D applications, such as Maya. Trimensional works by using the iPhone’s screen to shine four different lighting patterns on the subject while also using the device’s front-facing camera to snap photos. In the first version of the app, which was released in January, users could send still images of their scans via e-mail.

This update allows the app to stitch different views of a model together into a movie or an animated gif and e-mail. The new pro upgrade for Trimensional (available as an in-app purchase) will also send a file that you can use any 3-D program to open, so artists and other 3-D professionals or hobbyists can now use this $5 app to perform a task that used to require hundreds of dollars worth of equipment. Don’t miss the video below.

[Physorg]