Bevel Turns Your Phone Into A 3D Scanner For $49

Here at TechCrunch we’re eagerly awaiting the day when 3D photographs are just as mainstream as traditional ones. We even have an ongoing collection of some TC writers modeled in 3D.

However, like many early technologies, 3D capture devices are mostly too expensive and complicated to cater to the masses.

Canadian company Matter and Form is aiming to change this with Bevel, a device that plugs into your phone’s audio jack and allows it to capture 3D photographs. The device is currently in the midst of a $200,000 Kickstarter campaign, and eventually will retail for $49.

Bevel uses an eye-safe laser that acts as a fixed light source to capture scale and geometric detail, while your phone’s camera captures color, texture and other details. The result is a 360-degree model that you can rotate, zoom and even 3D-print.

Notably, the device and software will also work across a variety of phones and platforms, since it will ship with a calibration card that will help it adjust for various phone sizes and headphone jack locations.

Bevel will also come with a companion app, which will allow users to capture and share these 3D models.

While the company said these captured images will probably be saved in a proprietary format, the app will allow them to be exportable in common 3D formats so they can be printed or imported into other software.

Matter and Form is also launching Cashew, which is the company’s new (still in beta) online platform to upload and share 3D content.

While Cashew is similar to existing services like Sketchfab, users should benefit from the easy ability to upload to Cashew directly from the Bevel app. Cashew will also allow users to send models directly to 3D printing services like Shapeways.

Matter and Form already has experience launching 3D hardware products. Last year, they launched a relatively affordable 3D scanner, which we took a look at in a hands-on review. Now, the company is bringing 3D scanning to the masses, with the very affordably priced Bevel.

The company’s end goal is to allow users to create and consume 3D media “without all of the BS that comes with traditional 3D software and programs.” Drew Cox, founder and CEO of Matter and Form, emphasized that most hardware and software in the 3D ecosystem was developed a long time ago, and isn’t very intuitive.

The devices are expected to ship late Q4/early Q1 2016 and can be preordered on Kickstarter now.

Comments

Under Russian pressure to remove content, Instagram complies but YouTube holds off

Instagram has taken down content posted by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny under pressure from a government agency, while YouTube has yet to do so. Navalny and others have criticized Instagram for complying to what they call a politically motivated move to silence him. The issue is around a video accusing a Russian official, deputy prime minister Sergei Prikhodko, of accepting a bribe from prominent businessman Oleg Deripaska — in the form of a trip on a yacht populated with upscale escorts. It uses footage posted to Instagram (and later removed) by one of the alleged escorts. Deripaska sued in a local court, which turned around and ordered that the material be removed web-wide, recruiting the Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor to enforce the order. The deadline was yesterday. Among the sites and services complying with the order to remove the content in question is Instagram, which upon doing so was the target of swift rebuke from Navalny and his supporte...

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...

How to Install and Uninstall Graphics Tools in Windows 10?

Windows 10 has included some optional features which are in-built in the operating system but not installed by default. The Graphics Tool is one such package. The Graphic Tools are needed for users who use Visual Studio to develop DirectX apps or games. The tools have many utility like Graphics debugging, tracing Direct3D calls, inspection of parameters, analyzing Direct3D calls, experiments with shaders and many more. Visual Studio has a Graphics Frame Analysis tool that operates on graphics debugging log. It also collects all necessary information to draw Direct3D calls. The Graphics tools also consist of GPU Usage which lets you analyse and track GPU use in real time and at the same time collects and analyzes the timing data of the workloads. Steps to Install and Uninstall Graphics Tools in Windows 10? 1. Open the Start Menu, go to Settings and tap on System . 2. Go to Apps and features . 3. In the right panel, tap Manage ...

Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Team Up To Launch WebAssembly, A New Binary Format For The Web

Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and the engineers on the WebKit project today announced that they have teamed up to launch WebAssembly, a new binary format for compiling applications for the web. The web thrives on standards and, for better or worse, JavaScript is its programming language. Over the years, however, we’ve seen more and more efforts that allow developers to work around some of the limitations of JavaScript by building compilers that transpile code in other languages to JavaScript. Some of these projects focus on adding new features to the language (like Microsoft’s TypeScript) or speeding up JavaScript (like Mozilla’s asm.jsproject). Now, many of these projects are starting to come together in the form of WebAssmbly. The new format is meant to allow programmers to compile their code for the browser (currently the focus is on C/C++, with other languages to follow), where it is then executed inside the J...

The CC Aurora is actually pretty fun, as far as projectors go

I don’t review projectors. Projectors are boring. Even the good ones. They remind me of vacation slideshows and the film strips we had to watch in health class — neither of which I’m in a particular hurry to revisit in my adult life. That said, I’ve always harbored some germ of a notion that some day I might buy one, to compensate for being one of those weirdos without a TV set. There’s something undeniably appealing about a big screen TV you can break out during movie night and then stash back into the closest of your one-bedroom New York City apartment. XGIMI’s CC Aurora is the closest I’ve seen to fitting the bill — or, for that matter, being a projector that I could actually muster any reasonable amount of excitement about. From the looks of it, it’s kind of the perfect package for the apartment dweller: it’s compact, self-contained with a built-in speaker system and plays nicely with mobile devices. Clearly I’m not alone here, either. The product scored $170,000 on Indi...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog