Stanford University researchers have developed a Web service that lets users turn a single two-dimensional image of an outdoor scene into an immersive 3-D model.
This had been a mathematically complicated problem. To solve it, the researchers developed a machine-learning algorithm that associates visual cues, such as color, texture, and size, with certain depth values, based on what they have learned from studying two-dimensional photos paired with 3-D data.
Researchers at The University of Manchester (UK) have been able to watch, for the first time, what happens to the brain as it loses consciousness.
Using sophisticated imaging equipment, they constructed a 3-D movie of the brain as it changes while an anesthetic drug takes effect. The researchers said the real-time 3-D images seemed to show that losing consciousness involves a change in electrical activity deep within… read more
IBM researchers have developed a nuclear MRI technique that can see features as small as 90 nanometers.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have grown the first three-dimensional nanotubes, which are essential for next-generation computer chips and integrated circuits.
The method is based on a selective growth process that allows the nanotubes to grow perpendicular to the silica-coated substrate. By chiseling the silica into predetermined shapes, researchers can precisely control and direct the nanotube growth.
Nanotubes have properties that make them attractive as active nanoscale electronic… read more
3-D printing is being used to make tools and artworks, custom-fitted prosthetics for amputees, components for aviation and medical instruments, solid medical models of bones and organs based on MRI scans, paper-based photovoltaic cells, and the body panels for a lightweight hybrid automobile.
The beginnings of this technology may be making its way into your home within the next five years and sparking an industrial revolution in the process.… read more
Eoplex has developed 3D-printing manufacturing techniques for printing sub-micron-size voxels (3D pixels) to mass produce 3D objects. After some simple, but secret, processing, this stuff turns into metal, ceramics, and empty spaces.
The result can be miniature machines with moving parts, metamaterials-enabled multi-function antennas, piezoelectric powered energy harvesters, coin-sized hydrogen fuel cells, pretty much anything.
Shapeways, a new online service, aims to bring customized manufacturing to the masses by allowing consumers to submit digital designs of products that are then printed, using 3-D printers, and shipped back, at prices typically between $50 and $150.
While some 3-D printing services already exist, they are geared to professionals familiar with rendering designs in software suitable for 3-D printers. Shapeways makes this process far easier.… read more
Shapeways.com is beta testing a new service allowing people to print three dimensional models.
Customers can upload designs or use a creation tool hosted at the Shapeways website then order a printed model of their designs for less than $3 per square centimeter. The printed items are shipped to the customer in ten days or less, bringing 3-D printing directly to consumers.
Rapid prototyping machines (3-D printers) — which carve a model of an object out of metal, paper, plastic or starch – can now build moving parts, not just block models. University of California at Berkeley researchers are developing “flextronic” devices — or flexible mechatronics — a small model with flexible joints and electronic parts built in.
In 10 years, you might be able to fax a toy car to… read more
University of Washington researchers have built a three-dimensional scaffold out of a natural material, chitosan, that mimics the binding sites for stem cells and allowing the cells to reproduce on a clean, biodegradable structure.
Growing the cells in three dimensions better resembles conditions in the human body. It also allows for mass production, which will be needed for any clinical applications.
Software that converts 2-D data from CT and MRI scans into detailed 3-D images that can be used to plan a surgery or teach a lesson in anatomy has been developed by Iowa State University engineers.
Steve Kash is living in his own little world, but guests are welcome to drop in for a chat. Flyby’s Hangar is the three-dimensional structure Mr. Kash calls home on the World Wide Web. Visitors can circle the music room, then scoot up a set of stairs and take an elevator to the roof garden, where a brook burbles loudly.
Mr. Kash’s walls are bare. A Guggenheim curator, Matthew Drutt, on the other hand, has nothing but art in the Guggenheim Virtual Museum, a three-dimensional gallery that is expected to open to the Webgoing public before the year ends. Mr. Drutt declined to describe the museum’s vertical surfaces as walls, though. “I think more in terms of skins,” he said, “because the art is visible from the outside as… read more
Philips’ WOWvx displays–which allow viewers to perceive high-quality 3-D images without the need for special glasses–are now beginning to appear in shopping malls, movie-theater lobbies, and theme parks worldwide.
The technology uses image-processing software, plus display hardware that includes sheets of tiny lenses atop LCD screens. The lenses project slightly different images to viewers’ left and right eyes, which the brain translates into a perception of depth.
A new type of lens developed by Microsoft researchers makes it possible to to show different images to different viewers, or to create a stereoscopic (3-D) effect by presenting different images to a person’s left and right eye.
A number of 3-D displays currently being developed “open up a whole new world for medicine, science and other professions that rely on complex visualizations” as well as video games.
For example, the autostereoscopic display currently under development at NYU eliminates the need for glasses, can be seen from a variety of viewing angles, and allows users to see a unique picture depending on where they sit.