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Posted by: Beth Snyder on: 04/22/2015 08:36 PM
Wouldn't it be neat if you could take a picture of something, and then print copies of it you could actually use? That's what Caltech is working on, and while I can see some potential for evil, for the most part it seems like something a lot of us could actually use.
What they're developing is a chip for digital cameras called a nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI). It's smaller than one millimeter square, so it can be used in any digital camera including smartphones. With it in place, instead of just capturing a 2D image of an object, you end up with a 3D rendering of that object (their example is a penny), which can then be sent to a 3D printer and reproduced. There's a lot of science involved that I don't even pretend to understand, but basically the chip uses laser beams to measure the light that bounces off whatever object you're scanning to gather information about it.
While this is currently a prototype being developed in the Caltech labs, it's easy to see where it could eventually end up on the market. There will probably have to be some safeguards in place so people don't actually start printing their own money (or whatever else is deemed inappropriate), but something like this could be really handy especially in some situations. What leaps to mind is decorating for a party, where you've got to make umpteen identical centerpieces. Just make one, click a picture, and print however many more you need. Brilliant!
Source: Engadget
What they're developing is a chip for digital cameras called a nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI). It's smaller than one millimeter square, so it can be used in any digital camera including smartphones. With it in place, instead of just capturing a 2D image of an object, you end up with a 3D rendering of that object (their example is a penny), which can then be sent to a 3D printer and reproduced. There's a lot of science involved that I don't even pretend to understand, but basically the chip uses laser beams to measure the light that bounces off whatever object you're scanning to gather information about it.
While this is currently a prototype being developed in the Caltech labs, it's easy to see where it could eventually end up on the market. There will probably have to be some safeguards in place so people don't actually start printing their own money (or whatever else is deemed inappropriate), but something like this could be really handy especially in some situations. What leaps to mind is decorating for a party, where you've got to make umpteen identical centerpieces. Just make one, click a picture, and print however many more you need. Brilliant!
Source: Engadget