Like Renaissance artists, we're still discovering tricks to create realistic models, especially when complex surfaces, blends, and lighting models are involved. Like painting, solid modeling is the hard way to capture 3D images. 3D digital photography is poised to become the easy way to capture model data for existing objects. The real excitement is what we can do with the coming generation of 3D cameras and transformation software. Less than one percent of our built world is represented as solid models.
Applications range from e-commerce to rapid manufacturing.
The Web will accelerate all these applications, allowing customers to shop in virtual 3D worlds and then have customized products built to order. While mechanical devices are still used to gather 3D point data, the future belongs to non-contact scanners. A good source on 3D cameras is Mark Van Buren's 3D link site . While most of today's 3D cameras are built by niche suppliers like GOM , it's promising that mainstream vendors like Minolta are entering the fray with lower cost, portable, color cameras. Traditional photography requires film and processing.