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.
3D photography requires software to capture and transform point and color data into useful formats. Two interesting startups are Paraform and Raindrop Geomagic . To put this in perspective, photography has advanced from Brownie cameras to medical imaging, movies, and semiconductor fabrication in less than a century. Given Moore's Law and Web time, it's time to start thinking about what 3D digital photography will do during in the balance of our own careers. Peter Marks is Managing Director of Design Insight.