3Dphotography
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Seene lets you take and share 3D images from your iPhone
Seene is a clever and free iPhone app that lets you capture an object or person in three dimensions. It's not the 3D you get from taking two images that are horizontally displaced, but instead you move left and right, up and down while the camera is running, which produces an image that you can explore from different angles by either moving your phone or swiping your finger on the image. If you like the result, you can share your image through a web portal, or upload it to Twitter or Facebook. The 3D images can be viewed on most modern browsers that support WebGL, including Safari, Chrome and Firefox. How does it work? Really well, impressively so. Point the iPhone camera at an object or a person and you see a lot of little dots on your screen defining the object. If those dots aren't visible, your subject does not stand out enough from the background and you need to find a better background. In my experiments, I found that neutral backgrounds work best to not confuse the software. The app displays a kind of "pie chart" image that you can alter by moving in four directions until the four wedges have turned green. Once that has happened, there is enough data for the image. Processing is quick and easy, and from that point, you can save or send the photo. Seene is not the first app to try to capture an object with a moveable, dimensional photo, but I had the best results with it of any I've tried. If you are interested in this kind of photography, Seene is a no risk, no cost app to try out. Seene requires iOS 6 or later. Scenes can be captured only on an iPhone 4s or greater, but images can be viewed on an iPhone 4 or later. The app is optimized for the iPhone 5 series.
Sony's PlayMemories app brings 3D photos to your PlayStation 3
This wasn't mentioned among the other 3D-related PS3 announcements Sony made during its Tokyo Game Show press conference last week, but it looks like the company has another little bonus in store for those that just can't get enough 3D. It's just announced a new PlayMemories application that will be available as a free download in "late September," and will let you view both 2D and 3D photos captured with a 3D-compatible camera (including Sony's NEX-5/NEX-3, WX5 and TX9). No peek at the app itself just yet, unfortunately, but we're guessing it'll be available any day now -- it is technically late September, after all.
Aiptek's 3D photo frame serves up the fruit of your 3D camcorder's labor
When Aiptek introduced its i2 3D Camcorder, it pledged to release a 3D photo frame to match. Well, here it is, the "Portable 3D Photo and Video Display," a 7-inch parallax LCD display that will not require glasses to create the illusion of depth -- but we're curious to see what it'll look like from across the room. It's capable of displaying photos and videos captured by the i2 (or other 3D device) and releases on August 15 for $200, meaning the entire package (shooter and viewer) will set you back $400. That's not a terrible price for taking and displaying photos of the future. %Gallery-96461%
New 3D camera chip design might put Adobe on guard
You'd better watch your back Adobe, because it looks like you've got company in the 3D picture game. Stanford University researchers have recently hit upon a method of image sensing which can judge the distance of subjects within a shot. By using a 3-megapixel sensor which is broken into multiple, overlapping 16 x 16-pixel squares (referred to as subarrays), a camera is capable of capturing a variety of angles in one frame. When the images taken by the multi-aperture device are processed by proprietary software, location differences are measured from each mini-lens, and then combined into a photograph containing a depth map. This procedure allows the same image to appear at different angles, provided the subject has depth to begin with (i.e., isn't a flat surface). Here's hoping this technology makes it into consumer products pronto, ASAP, and forthwith.[Via Wired]
