3d Printers

[Tankmodeler]

Once have 3D cameras that can take a holographic image you might be able to have the printer make a part from that.

You don't need to go that far. If you can get any two views of an object, you can get enough info to at least start to independantly establish the 3D shape. The closer these views are to being orthogonal, the fewer errors you will make, but cameras displaced by as little as 10-15 deg can give enough information for some shapes. Granted these would be more well understood or expected shapes, but it does work with a small parallax.

Extremely complex shapes need even more than two views, expecially if there are any concavities in the shape.

If you notice, in the little vidio, they used the method to make a model of the pipe image, but there was no hole in the pipe for tobacco! Same thing.

Paul

[SCI-FI]

or maybe the technology is there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oie1ZXWceqM

SORCERY!

[Zubie]

There is 3d information in any 2d image, provided you are aware of a couple of things, the physical information of the lens type and either a sense of the distance from the lens or the scale of the object you are looking at. Having 2 slightly divergent views allows the definition of distance to be determined accurately without having to actually measure it. Still, rules of perspective can provide quite a bit of information, it just becomes harder as the object becomes more complex. People with one eye can navigate the world reasonably well after all.

There is software that can do this. I found this http://insight3d.sourceforge.net/, but I'm sure there's other stuff as well (much simplified versions of this are often assigned as projects in robotics courses, I know)

[Zubie]

For those looking into 3d printing, at Arisia there was a panel on 3d printers and one thing that I hadn't thought about was feedstock. One of the things mentioned was that while many of these printers use similar raw materials for printing, many of the printers themselves are set to only accept official stock for production. It is a situation basically similar to inkjets (you can try loading 3rd party inks or re-filling but you may have to deal with software or mechanical lockouts).

So, one of the things the panelists said one should consider is understanding the full operating costs of using a specific brand of printer. It was said that in some cases of the low end printers, the manufacturers were really looking at the feedstock as their profit center, not the printer.

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At some point a panelist mixed the difference between Linux and GNU with regards to open development. Richard Stallman was in the audience and clarified that

[Blappy]

So, one of the things the panelists said one should consider is understanding the full operating costs of using a specific brand of printer. It was said that in some cases of the low end printers, the manufacturers where really looking at the feedstock as their profit center, not the printer.

Fascinating. Definitely worth paying attention too.

[gsb5w]

The company I work for just purchased a 3d printer and the plan is to have it go from facility to facility and we are the first ones to receive it. The plan is to put it in the lab where I work but I haven't pulled it out of the box yet. I'm supposed to get some training to learn how to use it. It should be neat. I will post again here later.