SlashGear: Smartphones can do just about anything you can think of these days thanks to the wealth of apps that are out there. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a way to use a smartphones sensor to create a 3D model of objects and faces that can be accurately measured. To calibrate the sensors for measurement all the user needs to do is wave the camera around.
11 comments:
First off, congrats to the designers of this project and to all software engineers for being able to dream this stuff up. Other than that however, I feel like this has already been done in some sort of app and I also feel like they over complicated it, I mean 3D molding? Does that really need to be done from your phone? Aside from that I don’t think that professionals would be too keen to use it. They have a tendency to be mistrustful of things that aren’t labeled specifically for their use, and people who were using the modeling software I feel would want to show that to clients on their phone. It’s one thing to be able to make software to fun things, but when marketing them, think of the buying population, is it feasible? I think they have some user interfacing work to do. Or at the very least, re-marketing.
I think this new technology is really cool and helpful. You would never expect your phone to be able to measure something. When you need to measure something and you do not have a ruler with you, your phone is a great replacement. It seems like it does the work for you because you just need to point the camera at an object and probably move it around the object in order for the phone to figure out the size. It is very interesting that they are using face-tracking software and the phone’s sensors on changing from portrait to landscape, to create measuring software. Using this program to help shop for eyeglasses is very interesting and innovative. If the program can determine the shape of a person’s face and where their pupils are then it would be able to determine the perfect size and shape of glasses. It would make the process of buying and fitting glasses a lot easier and faster.
It would be really really useful to have a ruler in your pocket at all times, and that’s why we do when we need to. Everyone who works around the shop has readily access to a tape measure, which has been accurate enough for us for a while now. And though it would be nice to have a phone as a tape measure, there are a few logistical issues that make it relatively useless as a building tool for our purposes. The first is that we often times build items that are considerably larger than a human face, so that might complicate things if the device was intended to 3D model smaller objects. The second is the lack of interface a phone would have with the user, there’s no way to guarantee that the measurement is accurate. With a tape measure, you can see if the ruler is straight and measuring what you want it to, so there’s a whole lot more trust in it. Though I am often times a big proponent of using new technology, I just wouldn’t use my phone as a measuring tape, I’d go to my tool bag and get one.
The amount of times I wish I had a ruler in my backpack or pocket so i can quickly measure something is countless. I usually have to resort to small increments that I know like ~5.25" is the length of my phone and 11" is the height of a standard sheet of paper. but what if I am in my dorm room and I'm trying to build a shelf for myself in and open space (as I did a few months ago) and want a measurement to be able to go off of? i have to walk back to studio, get my tape measure, measure, go back to purnell and start building. With this app, I would always have a tape measure with me. Now I have an app similar to this but it has never been accurate. Its called magic plan and it is a great layout tool to make a blueprint of a room or house...if you know the dimensions of the room you are laying out, but often you don't. I want to see and app that shows a tape measure on your phone and the tape measure scrolls as you slide your phone down the wall of a room. That would be cool. I hope this new technology works well because I would love to be able to measure things wherever I am (I find i like to know the size of things)
This is so cool! There have been many times when I have wanted to figure out how long something is and I do not have a ruler on me. I have a really bad measuring app on my phone right now the just gives you the measurement for your screen, so basically you can only measure about 3 inches at a time. And if anything’s longer than three inches you have to move your pone down and measure again which leads to really inaccurate measurements.
Imagine if we all had this app. Measuring wood or metal on the shop would be so much easier even if it is not completely accurate, you can use this to make sure you are pulling the right piece of wood out of a pile when you just want to double check that it is, in fact, the right size piece of wood. Like after you cut it, just to make sure quickly. And it sounds like we won't even have to worry about it being inaccurate because the technology can get to half a millimeter as is. What would be awesome is if it could tell you where, say, 6in was in relation to a bigger piece of wood so you can mark it. It’s going to be interesting to see where this technology goes.
I think this technology would be really useful if you could make it export to other 3D formats. Many times i've spent hours making something in 3D just to duplicate it or represent it in a different way. If you were able to scan a object on your Iphone and send it to your friend at home to 3d print that same object that would be amazing. I like that this is a combination of many different apps that are already out there. I don't know if i would replace the tape measure on my keys for this but I would use it if it could scan object for me. This has many ways of improving as well, I hope someday they might even be able to add a laser to the iphone that points at a surface to measure the distance.
This is definitely a very cool app. There have been many times, whether in a work environment or just out and about, that I have wished I had some way to measure things on me. This sounds as though it might be something very sensitive and prone to flukes, but if it works out that sounds great to me. I wonder if it would be able to take multiple measurements; for instance, if you could take a photo of a room and have the dimensions of the walls as well as the objects in the room, I think that would be very interesting. That kind of tool might be something realtors would use when showing houses; that way, if a couple has a certain piece of furniture that is very special to them, or a dining room set they already purchased or something, they can see at a glance whether it would fit there. Obviously this would be helpful in our own industry as well. Very interesting.
This is some pretty cool hardware utilization. I know there are other apps that claim to be able to model room layout and other items simply by moving the camera around, but if this is truly as accurate as they claim, then that is rather exciting. The article didn't really cover this, but I would be interested to know what the degree of accuracy is in this app. If this does become a highly practical and accurate way of measuring things, it definitely seems like some sort of "future" tech, where you can just take out your digital device and analyze any item in front of you! I can definitely see applications where information from this type of app is overlaid with other VR information about what is is your field of view. Like if Google Glass simply had this ability to measure items baked into its featureset. Stuff like that would be way cool I think! But also yes, having a digital pocket ruler is cool too.
I feel like this is one of those really great ideas that is super cool and interesting and everyone loves it until it is actually created and it ends up being really faulty. I honestly cannot imagine technology being better than actual tape measures and hand tools to get the job done correctly and time efficiently. Technology can go wrong many of the times and is too unreliable to be able to gain my trust. I can see how people are actually excited about this new product on the smartphone. I agree, it is an amazing and innovative idea; I just don’t necessarily see the use for it compared to the quick and easy use of a ruler and hand tool. The 3D quality of this can be useful. Like Tom said, I would most likely use this app to scan objects, but not necessarily as a tape measure.
So much of how people start to initial estimating how much space things will take up is done first by eyeballing it. We don’t always have the ability to just pull out a tape measure right out of our back pockets and see if an object will fit in the space allotted for it. With the technological age we now live in today everyone wants to be able to see how something will look in a space before purchasing it. Often the modern way of accomplishing this goal is to measure out the space available and mathematically checking to see if it will work. The problem with this method is that people are becoming more and more dissatisfied with how something looks in the space aesthetically. It shows a progression of our design tastes as a society. I know many stores have created apps so that customers can “place” the objects they want to buy in the room they are in currently. Problem is the images they are showing the customers are not true and real expectations of what they should be expecting. So the thought that there exists a CMU created app has the technology to gauge the space they are looking at is a true improvement to being able to help the consumer in the long run.
I'm skeptical on if this devices would be as convenient as it says it is. Measurements, especially in a scenic shop, are very valuable to be an accurate as possible and this app idea doesn't come across as the most accurate measuring tool. It's also not as tangible as a measuring tape or a ruler. And does this app allow curved measurements? How long does it run? Also, is this device able to remember the measurements to create a 3d model? I just can't get myself to trust this device as much as I should. Yes it may actually work and may be one of the most convenient tools, but this doesn't seem useful for the profession I'm trying to be apart of. Just being an inch off can be detrimental to the construction of a set piece. But looking past what I believe, this tool would seem to be useful for more household projects or 3d model renderings when it is upgraded enough to be more available.
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