Microsoft's MobileFusion lets you scan 3D objects via smartphone

The teams at Microsoft Research regularly come up with fascinating approaches to technology innovation — the latest is software that turns your smartphone into a 3D scanner

Microsoft's app, called MobileFusion, allows you to point and shoot to create 3D images that can later be used for 3D-printed objects or, as the team suggests, augmented reality objects.

MobileFusion appears to be a mobile extension of the ideas behind the earlier Kinect Fusion, which allows the Kinect to build 3D maps of rooms in the real world

The idea behind MobileFusion is brilliant, but similar technology has been shown off before. Switzerland-based software startup Dacuda, as well as a team of developers at ETH Zurich's Department of Computer Science have both demonstrated mobile 3D scanning via smartphone in the past Read more...