Here’s something pretty well guaranteed to put a smile on your face, I think: the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies has developed VideoTrace, "a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video." A user sketches a few surfaces, after which the system works to generate 3D data. The short video demonstration is a little ho-hum until near the middle, which is where the uncontested smiling begins. 😉 [Via]
This demo makes me think of Strata’s Foto 3D, a tool for generating 3D models from within Photoshop, using just a series of photographs. By placing an object onto a specially printed piece of paper, then shooting it from a variety of angles, you give the software enough info to generate a 3D model that can then live as a 3D layer in Photoshop CS3 Extended.
It also reminds me of Extended’s ability to set 3D planes on a photograph using its Vanishing Point plug-in, then export the results as 3D data for use in After Effects and other tools. With it you can export an image like this as 3D data, then set camera movement in AE and create an animation like this.
It would be cool if the following happened:
Adobe buys this technology (e.g. buy code and assignment to the patents), and to make more accessible to designers and engineers, makes this available in Photoshop Extended and Production applications. This helps Adobe fight price elasticity challenges as the cost of suites goes up over time, and provides a compelling feature to Adobe customers.
Adobe licenses royalty-free the patents (and perhaps some code) for open-source use (GPL as poison pill to non-Free Adobe competitors). This way, the world gets this technology free, but Adobe gets commercial advantage as first mover, most convenient, and from licensing IP to competitors.
One can dream, I suppose…
A few other image processing projects from 2007 are gathered here:
http://aeportal.blogspot.com/2008/01/2007-image-processing-projects.html
[Cool, will check ’em out; thanks. –J.]