Via Robert Thomas, here's an ambitious Kickstarter which brings high-end 3D motion capture to the masses, enabling anyone with $159 or more to avatarize themselves for 3D worlds or 3D printing, watch:
Slight catch: You need to be available and on-hand in various US cities during the project's tour to do the 3D capture process, but if you can do that, you're working with technology currently being used in VR:
We've already used the xxArray to develop a number of groundbreaking commercial projects, including the first-ever interactive 3D campaign for Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX to promote Relativity Media's "Earth to Echo," and Nurulize’s "RISE" demo, a 4K VR experience created for the Oculus Rift's DK2.
Pretty cool, if you really want to see yourself in full digitized 3D, though I sort of suspect the market self-avatarization is pretty limited. Also, to judge by the above video, this technology can capture the physical body, but not the soul -- i.e. facial expressions, emotions, etc. (At least at the asking price point.)
This really is mind-blowing technology. In order for it to succeed long-term it will need to move beyond the novelty/amusement phase into real-world commercial applications. As the video suggested, it can be used in the arts, but I can easily imagine that it could find a place in several others, such as:
1) The fashion industry - which is already experimenting with 3D printing
2) The field of psychology - visualization is an important component in healing and self-actualization
3)Law enforcement and military operations - which have been using 3D simulation for a long time
I'm sure there are many other industries as well. It will be interesting to watch this develop.
Posted by: jennspoint | Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 01:36 PM