This is what we've been doing for the last few months

[nasu_dengaku]

This is the project that Dave and I have been working on:

Click to view

Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to capture 3D objects and scenes from the physical world, turning them into virtual objects for use online. We believe that making 3D capture as easy and as simple as digital photography will profoundly shift how we process and share visual

Comments

[crasch]

Very cool!

[kekdesign]

This is so cool! Does it work well with people? Let's say on a crowd, tell them not to move for a few seconds or so?

[nasu_dengaku]

People are tricky. They have to sit very still for it to work, and you get a lot of "uncanny valley" issues if they do move -- eg if someone's face is too wide because they moved, it looks like they have some genetic defect... not so good.

Here's an example of one that turned out reasonably well:

[nasu_dengaku]

We do plan on raising a seed round, and have inadvertently attracted some interest already. I can email you separately if you and/or people you know are interested.

[jensolo]

Can I be annoyed with you for essentially negating the 3DstudioMax software I've just spend $1800 and 15 weeks learning? I could have just walked around my building and captured it, then gone in and made changes. Very cool.

[nasu_dengaku]

Haha... 3dsmax is likely to remain useful for quite some time, especially since there are lots of objects that *don't* exist in the real world. Photography didn't destroy painting and graphic arts after all; it just gave them more raw material to work with.

[jensolo]

Yes, but in this specific case, I am about to spend literally 7 weeks at 10 hours per day to create this building. I had access to the building up until about 3 weeks ago when it was sold (pssst, possibly to Twitter). Argh.

[nasu_dengaku]

You can hire a professional laser scanning technician to scan it for $5000 or so. (The scanners themselves are around $50k) Take whatever they're paying you and pocket the difference. :-)