Woah, holy shit

[English Mobster]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/23/cambridges-proforma-does-3d-scanning-with-any-stationary-webcam/

Never mind that silly name: ProFORMA (which stands for 'Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition', if you must know) is some cool system that turns any ordinary webcam into a powerful 3D scanning tool. In fact, a camera is pretty much all you need for some "on-line" modeling action -- no laser (http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/22/david-software-turns-your-webcam-into-a-3d-laser-scanner/) or green screen necessary -- meaning the 3D models are constructed on the spot while you slowly rotate the objects, although ProFORMA can also track fast moving objects as shown in the demo video after the break. Fans of machinima should also look into this for their next Warhammer drama series, but don't say you heard it from us.
vEOmzjImsVc

[Delta4907]

That's pretty damn cool. I remember that david laser scanner thing, but I never got a laser to use it. This beats that by a long shot.

[Pyong Kawaguchi]

download plox

[teh lag]

I'm slightly concerned that it seemed to have a lot of trouble getting a clean mesh for an object as simple as that. Cool tech I guess, but from that video it seems to have a long way to go.

[Maniac]

download plox

News 12/Nov/2009 - In a few months time when code porting (to new library versions) is complete, a Linux-based demo of ProFORMA should be released. This will be followed by a windows based demo.

[Con]

That's amazing, I'll have to keep an eye out for that. It's not perfect but it looks fun.

[Inferno]

First person to do it on there dick wins.

[Maniac]

First person to do it on there, dick wins.
Do what on where? and who is dick?

[ThePlague]

First person to do it on there dick wins.
.

[Rentafence]

Any idea of what it might do if I point the camera at the monitor?

[legionaire45]

Create a micro-black hole and end our existence.

Cool tech.

[Pooky]

First person to do it on there dick wins.

First you'd have to make your meat spin.

[Cagerrin]

First you'd have to make your meat spin.
:caruso:

[t3h m00kz]

what the fuck that's fucking awesome

[Con]

Any idea of what it might do if I point the camera at the monitor?
It creates the model by tracking features, so therefore it would create the model of the monitor textured with your screen. The only problem would be the space on the monitor showing the camera's view, in which case the camera would try to track points on the view that are moving as the camera moves. That would create a bunch of weird points in the area, especially since the view is distorted from the side and the position of the monitor within the view would change. Any further details in the feedback loop would likely be too small to pick up. :ugh:

[English Mobster]

Exactly. It would detect that your screen is 2-D, and thus will make a single plane as your monitor, with a texture as your screen.

There might be a small feedback loop, but I'm not sure how detailed it would be because I'm not sure how high-resolution things are.

[t3h m00kz]

You know, if this makes it big and is improved upon, 3D modelers may be out of jobs.. :ohdear:

[Cagerrin]

But how do you scan something that doesn't exist? I doubt it costs as much to model something digitally as it does to build a physical model of something and scan it.

[t3h m00kz]

Good point.

Getting all sorts of props would be a tad expensive.

[p0lar_bear]

It would change the workflow up. Modelers would still be needed to work with the modeling app and to manipulate the model, do optimizations, normal mapping, etc.

And sometimes auto-generated models can't beat the quality of a model built from scratch.

[Llama Juice]

That's like saying mocap will beat out animators, won't happen. This stuff just opens more jobs up for cleanup.

This scanning stuff has been in the industry for years, this isn't anything new.

The fact that it's using simple technology though makes it cool as hell, I really wanna play with this.

[Ganon]

You know, if this makes it big and is improved upon, 3D modelers may be out of jobs.. :ohdear:

Looks like you need to be narrated the story of John Henry by Darth Vader himself.

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