3-d scanner

MakerBot honcho kicks off SXSW 2013

AUSTIN, Texas--What's next for 3D printing? MakerBot founder and CEO Bre Pettis answered that question in all-capital letters during his opening keynote speech here at South by Southwest 2013.

"LASERS," read a slide with factoid about his company's latest 3D printer, the MakerBot Digitizer.

"It's kind of like Tron," Pettis explained, as a prototype of the new printer fired its laser scanners at a garden gnome.

Introduced by South by Southwest Interactive director Hugh Forrest as the "hero of South by," Pettis started this year's conference with a brief history … Read more

MakerBot Digitizer 3D scanner: Real-world cut-and-paste

MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis says his 3D printing company is working on a desktop 3D scanner called the Digitizer, to help ease the process of translating real-world objects into a 3D-printable software file.… Read more

3D photo booth prints your whole body pose

Flat photos are so last year. What may be the world's first 3D photo booth is about to open in Japan. The Omote 3D photo booth creates action-figure-size versions of posing people.

Unlike an old-fashioned photo booth, you will only get one "photo." This might not be the best way to capture a proposal, for example. You and your soon-to-be-fiance would just be standing there as you wait the 15 minutes it takes for the 3D scanner to capture your image.… Read more

3D imaging could help improve hearing aids

If you're one of the 17 percent of American adults who reportedly suffer from some type of hearing loss, listen up: hearing aids--and earphones--may be about to enter a new generation of superior fit and functionality, thanks to molds based on a 3D imaging technique instead of plaster.

Time was, getting fitted for a hearing aid took an hour in a chair with an audiologist, who would fill a patient's ear canals with a silicone substance that hardened into a mold from which the aid would be constructed. The molds are only so detailed, which means the fits … Read more

3D scanning for our future lives

As we enter our second lives, we're seeing the floodgates beginning to open on 3D technologies. Unfortunately, a lot of the equipment on the market today comes with futuristic price tags--but competition is helping already.

Take this 3D scanner from NextEngine, for example. Sci-Fi Tech, which reported the item first, says it can scan an object in about 2 minutes and then "render it onscreen for you to stretch, rotate, or break apart in any number of applications, many of which are provided," with accuracy to 0.005 of an inch.

The cost still isn't cheap--$… Read more