People of Boulder / San Francisco-based occipital software people are very much - RedLaser application of the company was very successful in the early days of the App Store before the team sold it to eBay, which was 360 Panorama Panorama function before iOS 6 took some of the wind out of his sails.
Its roots may be in the software, but now the team is trying to do something very, very new. Occipital has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for their first hardware project: the structure, a portable 3D sensor that straps on the back of your iPad to be shipped by next February.
Update: Wow, the occipital team has flown beyond its funding goal of $ 100K in just over three hours.
"It took us out of our comfort zone," CEO Jeff Powers admitted. "We went from basically a team of three to about 13, which is still ridiculously small, and nobody sleeps anymore."
Those sleepless nights seem to have paid off. The structure itself is a ruggedly handsome piece of kit. Small and dressed in anodized aluminum, is not nothing like the goofy 3D sensors is likely to have been exposed to. That's a testament to the kind of tedious adjustments that went into making the structure of what is - is there a sensor full size PrimeSense Carmine, but went to the occipital cutting physical crust so the structure could fit in a pocket . Energy consumption also had to be cut dramatically since it was out of the battery iPad 4 (although technically it will connect to any iDevice in your arsenal that has a dock connector Ray).
The bit is really amazing how quickly the structure works in capturing all this data. Powers took the structure and some of the demo applications bundled by a short spin in our New York office, and within mere moment he was able to capture a virtual bust his ever-present marketing director and shooting off to Shapeways for printing. Scanning the topology of a side room was equally rapid, as in the process of launching a virtual
cat
in the mix of chasing balls that bounced 3D interpretations of the sofas and coffee tables.
That breadth of these demo applications speaks to the type of ecosystem that Powers hopes will rise around the structure in the weeks and months ahead. After all, as clean as it is, the market for a gadget that allows users to capture and export 3D models for printing is still quite limited. Powers Vision 'is much broader: the SDK being released along with the sensor structure will allow developers to create consumer-oriented applications that take advantage of all that the 3D data.
"We're really just building a device, we're building a platform," Powers said. For what he sees, occipital is not possible to build every possible game or application augmented reality measurement alone. Instead, the team will make the data accessible low level for developers, and make high-level APIs available to developers who know nothing about computer vision in an attempt to make the structure is as accessible as possible.
You can imagine the type of applications that might come along with the adoption of the structure. Looking to buy a new sofa? Analyze your living room and see if that sucker fits with his shelf. The realtors could benefit from easy capture models, manipulatives at offices and homes (although some startups already have an advantage on that front). Thankfully, while the structure is designed to fit in the back of your iPad, ambitious developers can use the connection to the PC, Mac and Android devices thanks to a hacker call a standard cable that allows connection through USB.
At first glance, this seems a drastic change for a company that has only ever focused on the development of software, not to mention the dangers of production and the pitfalls that come with the hardware of the large-scale construction. That does not mean that the ambitions of occipital 3D have completely come out of nowhere though. Earlier this year, the company closed its acquisition of startup ManCTL Frenchman, who was best known for a desktop application called 3D scanning Skanect that let users turn cheapo 3D sensors like the Kinect or Asus Xtion to capture data and turn them into full 3D color models in minutes.
Structure, then, it seems the next logical step. It is a convergence of two seemingly divergent realms of experience, and is possibly happening at the right time. Smartphones and tablets are becoming more capable by the day, which leads people to expect more from their daily companions. And with 3D printers moving into the mainstream, there is a growing sense of awareness about the value of conversion of objects and environments in 3D representations.
Even the Kickstarter campaign is a sign of the times. Powers admits occipital really do not have to go the route crowdfunded - he says they have enough above its previous round of funding to cover these very early production series - but it could not hurt to help build excitement among developers and measure demand for expensive add-on tablet. If you are interested in throwing your hat in the ring boasts a package of early adopters for $ 329, but the package will cost you $ 349, if you wait too long.
Its roots may be in the software, but now the team is trying to do something very, very new. Occipital has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for their first hardware project: the structure, a portable 3D sensor that straps on the back of your iPad to be shipped by next February.
Update: Wow, the occipital team has flown beyond its funding goal of $ 100K in just over three hours.
"It took us out of our comfort zone," CEO Jeff Powers admitted. "We went from basically a team of three to about 13, which is still ridiculously small, and nobody sleeps anymore."
Those sleepless nights seem to have paid off. The structure itself is a ruggedly handsome piece of kit. Small and dressed in anodized aluminum, is not nothing like the goofy 3D sensors is likely to have been exposed to. That's a testament to the kind of tedious adjustments that went into making the structure of what is - is there a sensor full size PrimeSense Carmine, but went to the occipital cutting physical crust so the structure could fit in a pocket . Energy consumption also had to be cut dramatically since it was out of the battery iPad 4 (although technically it will connect to any iDevice in your arsenal that has a dock connector Ray).
The bit is really amazing how quickly the structure works in capturing all this data. Powers took the structure and some of the demo applications bundled by a short spin in our New York office, and within mere moment he was able to capture a virtual bust his ever-present marketing director and shooting off to Shapeways for printing. Scanning the topology of a side room was equally rapid, as in the process of launching a virtual
cat
in the mix of chasing balls that bounced 3D interpretations of the sofas and coffee tables.
That breadth of these demo applications speaks to the type of ecosystem that Powers hopes will rise around the structure in the weeks and months ahead. After all, as clean as it is, the market for a gadget that allows users to capture and export 3D models for printing is still quite limited. Powers Vision 'is much broader: the SDK being released along with the sensor structure will allow developers to create consumer-oriented applications that take advantage of all that the 3D data.
"We're really just building a device, we're building a platform," Powers said. For what he sees, occipital is not possible to build every possible game or application augmented reality measurement alone. Instead, the team will make the data accessible low level for developers, and make high-level APIs available to developers who know nothing about computer vision in an attempt to make the structure is as accessible as possible.
You can imagine the type of applications that might come along with the adoption of the structure. Looking to buy a new sofa? Analyze your living room and see if that sucker fits with his shelf. The realtors could benefit from easy capture models, manipulatives at offices and homes (although some startups already have an advantage on that front). Thankfully, while the structure is designed to fit in the back of your iPad, ambitious developers can use the connection to the PC, Mac and Android devices thanks to a hacker call a standard cable that allows connection through USB.
At first glance, this seems a drastic change for a company that has only ever focused on the development of software, not to mention the dangers of production and the pitfalls that come with the hardware of the large-scale construction. That does not mean that the ambitions of occipital 3D have completely come out of nowhere though. Earlier this year, the company closed its acquisition of startup ManCTL Frenchman, who was best known for a desktop application called 3D scanning Skanect that let users turn cheapo 3D sensors like the Kinect or Asus Xtion to capture data and turn them into full 3D color models in minutes.
Structure, then, it seems the next logical step. It is a convergence of two seemingly divergent realms of experience, and is possibly happening at the right time. Smartphones and tablets are becoming more capable by the day, which leads people to expect more from their daily companions. And with 3D printers moving into the mainstream, there is a growing sense of awareness about the value of conversion of objects and environments in 3D representations.
Even the Kickstarter campaign is a sign of the times. Powers admits occipital really do not have to go the route crowdfunded - he says they have enough above its previous round of funding to cover these very early production series - but it could not hurt to help build excitement among developers and measure demand for expensive add-on tablet. If you are interested in throwing your hat in the ring boasts a package of early adopters for $ 329, but the package will cost you $ 349, if you wait too long.
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