Canon and Solidiphy Bring Life into 3D
Remember how people used to tell a photographer, “Oh, no. Please don’t take my picture from the left—that is my bad side”? That just won’t cut it anymore: Advances in technology mean that machines will be snapping you from all angles to create a full 3D likeness.
Solidiphy, a pioneer in the 3D scanning, modeling, and printing sector, promises to revolutionize the way you see photos and images. Partnering with Canon to utilize their photo technology, the company brought their work to this year’s CES for all the world—and us—to see.
On the show floor, Canon and Solidiphy invited industry professionals to step into the cutting-edge Cobra 3D Scan Booth. When you stand in it, your likeness is captured from all angles by an impressive 128 Canon DSLR cameras and six strobe heads. The whole scan only takes a second, like a normal photo, and then another half hour to render into a 3D image for printing.
Once your image has been processed, there’s no limit to what you can do with it. Make your own figurines, design family members as chess pieces, create a life-size model of yourself to terrify unexpected visitors. Love your dog? Scan him and you can make a life-size replica or miniatures—take him in your suitcase when you go on vacation. The list is virtually endless!
Another cool application is what we expect to see on cakes around the country soon: wedding toppers. No more generic couples with their plastic smiles and goofy poses—now you can make sure you’re the stars of your own cake. Heck, you could put your dog figure on there with you.
The company says its “state-of-the-art instant-capture photogrammetry system enables the capture of dynamic posing and life-like realism with every shot,” and since the items are hand-finished and produced in full color, they can be striking. Every detail, down to the folds in a piece of clothing, can be faithfully recreated.
Solidiphy’s tech whizzes say they are “redefining the traditional photo as a three-dimensional work of art” and intend to offer businesses ways to take advantage of the new 3D figurine market. The technology does require the use of a scanner. According to the company at CES, some 3D images can be created using traditional photographs, but it is limited to subjects like pets. Not every business who wants to use their technology has to make space for a scanner like the Cobra, however. Solidiphy has a mix of portable and studio-based scanners to cater to different companies and locations. So, we may see this technology in a variety of forms in the next decade. Perhaps models will use these figures instead of the traditional photo-based portfolio to impress fashion designers.
Check out the video below to see both the scanner and just some of the wide variety of models it can create:
And the best news is that getting products from Solidiphy with your likeness takes no time at all. It’s so quick to scan and print, customers can have their products within about a week!
