Researchers at the University of Washington have figure out how to create 3D time-lapse video sequences of landmarks by using a collection of still photos found on the Internet. The 7-minute video above is a short presentation that shows the technology in action.
Want to get a taste of what it's like to climb Mount Everest without the risk of dying in the process? High-res photography and virtual reality will soon make it possible.
Every week, Apple selects an application from the iOS App Store and makes it available for free to anyone with an Apple ID. This week’s app is ‘Matter’ by Pixite, which is normally $2. It allows you to add surreal 3D objects to your photographs. With only a few taps, you can add three-dimensional effects to your pictures with realistic shadows and reflections.
New York-based photographer Chris Buck is known for his celebrity portraits and magazine cover photos (two of his TIME covers here and here), but recently he's been working on a rather unusual personal project -- one that involves his iPhone and a realistic miniature 3D-printed figurine of himself.
From time to time, a lens will appear that we can’t help but develop a desire to test. Samsung released a 45mm f/1.8 NX lens, but neither the focal length nor the aperture are what make it attractive; this $500 lens can shoot photographs in not only two-dimensions, but three-dimensions. That’s right, this piece of kit brings 3D photos and videos to your Samsung NX series camera at the flip of a switch.
A Los Angeles-based cloud graphics company called OTOY has announced the world's first spherical light field capture that creates a navigable scene in virtual reality. By capturing light field data with a special Canon and GoPro camera rig, the company created the beginnings of immersive photos you can move around in.
Fyuse is a new "spatial photography" app that wants to be the Instagram of 3D photos. Capture a dynamic photo by moving your phone around during capture, and viewers will be able to explore your 3D photo by tilting their phone in their hands.
This year, the White House hosted its first ever Maker Faire, and amongst the barrage of incredible creations presented stood the elaborate camera/scanner/light setup responsible for capturing, rendering, and printing the world's first 3D printed presidential portrait.
We’ve shared some interesting cameras in the past, but Blocks Camera's new creation has to be one of the most unusual form factors we’ve ever laid eyes on.
The camera is called the Blocks+, and its modular design lets you to swap in-and-out components, called ‘blocks,’ to allow for an almost endless array of photographic and video options -- from 3D to 360º photography.
Need a piece of gear but can't find a reasonably priced option? Perhaps 3D printing could help.
That's what photographers Patrick Ludolph and Christian Steinkrüger. After not finding an affordable filter solution for his Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, Ludolph approached Steinkrüger -- a 3D printing hobbyist -- with the idea of creating a custom filter holder themselves.
Photographer Dan Vojtěch teamed up with Red Bull wakeskater Zuzana Vráblová for a unique and technologically challenging photo shoot. Vojtěch and his team utilized 3D scanning technology, 3D printing, and studio photography to create some eye-catching images.
Dacuda, a company known for its camera-related applications, is getting ready to release 3DAround, an intuitive 360-degree interactive photo capturing app.
Designed with simplicity in mind, 3DAround uses a clever interface to help direct you as to how to capture objects with minimal ‘scanning’ of your smartphone’s camera.
Just over a year ago we showed you the Kúla Deeper, a DSLR add-on that effectively turns any DSLR into a 3D camera. Now the Kúla team is back, and they wanna do the same thing to your smartphone.
Introducing the Kúla Bebe, an almost identical add-on designed with smartphones in mind.
This photo isn't actually a photo. From the furniture to the beautiful light falling on the countertops and wood floors, what you're looking at is a CGI rendering that has replaced 75% of the 'photos' in the IKEA catalogs the college kids, divorced men and NYC residents in your life have lying around.
That iconic Leica red dot doesn't come cheap... not even in the virtual world. A company called Humster3D recently created some ultra-detailed, high-quality 3D models of several popular Leica cameras and made them available for download... for a price.
By the end of September, NASA engineer Jason Budinoff is hoping to finish the first imaging telescopes to be created almost completely out of 3D-printed aluminum.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are blowing minds with
Traditional 3D motion capture technologies, amazing though they are, are limited. They only give you a small number of data points to work with, and while they seem to capture a great deal of detail, their abilities are far outpaced by the intricate movements of the human body.
Fortunately, there’s a new technology in development that might just be able to solve this problem by throwing a crap-load of cameras at it.
What you see in the video above is a real sculpture that does, in fact, look as if it is perpetually melting right before your eyes. But while creating the exact sculpture took months of design and engineering work, the photographic technique behind it was invented as long ago as 100 BC.
What you're looking at is a three-dimensional "zoetrope," an animation device that created the illusion of motion using lighting effects or a sequence of still images (in this case, it's a mix of clever sculpting and well-timed strobes).
Looking to lighten up his current load while out photographing time-lapses, photographer Doug Urquhart 3D printed and pieced (read: hacked) together a brilliant 3-axis modular time-lapse motion control rig that is 50% lighter than his previous setup.
Photographer Alexander Khokhlov recently teamed up with make-up artist Veronica Ershova and stylist Mikhail Kravchenko to bring to life an image that looks like a Photoshop job straight out of your nightmares.
Actual 3D footage can be a pain, both to capture and to watch, which is why we fell in love with this super simple technique when we ran across it. It turns out, all you have to do to turn a normal photo or animated GIF into a 3D experience is add a couple of white bars...
Sure, the 1980s isn't quite so far in the past as, say, the first photo, but the commercial above is classic nonetheless. It shows off the Nimslo 35mm 3D camera, the first consumer level 3D lenticular camera of the 80s and, if you believe the commercial, "the most important new camera of your lifetime."
If you were wanting to have your mind blown today, the video above might do it. It's a demonstration of a piece of 3D object extraction and manipulation software that made its debut at SIGGRAPH 2013, and it may just offer a glimpse into the future of photo manipulation.
For those art enthusiasts who just don't have the millions of dollars required to purchase their own original Van Gogh painting, Fujifilm has a solution for you. After seven years of development, the company's "Reliefography" 3D scanning and printing technique is ready to create near-flawless replicas of great works of art, which will be available to the public for tens of thousands instead of tens of millions.
The 3D camera movement never really took off like some people hoped that it would, but that doesn't mean 3D doesn't have its merits. Many people still love the idea of capturing photos or videos in 3D, but they're not necessarily willing to buy/carry around a camera dedicated solely to that purpose.
The Kúla Deeper side-steps this problem. It's not a 3D camera in and of itself, but a DSLR add-on that enables your existing camera to capture 3D one second and 2D the next.
Data is embedded in our environment, in our behavior, and in our genes. Over the past two years, the world has generated 90% of all the data we have today. The information has always been there, but now we can extract and collect massive amounts of it.
Given the explosion of mobile photography, social media based photo sharing, and video streaming, it’s likely that a large portion of the data we collect and create comes in the form of digital images.
The Tadaa app for iOS is a neat camera and effects app that has managed to win itself some 3 million users since it first hit digital shelves. It's done this by offering interesting effects and features that competitors like Instagram don't -- such as a Twitter-like re-share feature and the recently added ability to blur the background.
The newest feature out of the Tadaa camp, however, comes as its own stand-alone app rather than an in-app ability. Dubbed Tadaa 3D, it'll allow you to "create breathtaking 3D illusions" using standard photos.
Got a few dozen spare DSLRs and fistful of startup capital? Then you, too, could get into the emerging field of 3D selfies, as pioneered by Texas photo studio Captured Dimensions.
Photographer Jordan Williams started the business a few years ago after becoming convinced there was more to 3D printing than making industrial prototypes and the like. He fashioned a 360-degree photo studio in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, outfitted with more than 60 DSLRs, all remoted-out for simultaneous shutter release.
For a while now, researchers have been trying to remove two things from 3D photos and video: the glasses and the second lens. Some companies have made headway in the area -- think of Samsung's single-lens 3D technology and Panasonic's special single-lens 3D sensor -- but some new research out of Harvard offers a software-based alternative.