Gadgetory

hey everyone Jeff back over here from cnet com we're at the gamespot booth here at comic-con 2013 our buddies I change spot has put together an unbelievable feat the 3d cam here with me as Jenn who's the genius behind this incredible concoction Jan tell me exactly what's going on here and how does it work so basically this is a process called photogrammetry it is basically taking measurements off of two-dimensional images so what we have here is an array of cameras we've got 89 cameras up here and it's basically just trying to get a shot from like every angle and we can reconstruct that into a three-dimensional model of it cool so you were telling me that they all have to fire at the same time what yeah how do you rig that together um I rigged it together by building this box over here I made it so that all i have to do is push a button all the cameras are wired together on to it and so yeah basically everything is everything is hardwired on it the flashes are a radio trigger to it and basically all of those have to go off at the same time there's a lot of timing involved has like these flashes you're talking about the light is on for only a millisecond so like when when the cameras go off sometimes it's like just by nature of the camera so it can be all fine like a millisecond even that is enough to throw it off so it's like it's got to be millisecond kind of accuracy so you're you're faced with the challenge of getting them all to fire at the same time what about the fact that we're in the middle of comic-con and there's all this chaos around us how do you deal with taking that into consideration so the strobes that put out a lot of light in all actuality like I could have it so this background is pretty much dark with how much light these put out but I do get a bit of the light in here just to get a bit of separation because if it was just flat black in the background then dark colors dark colors are hard enough to scan if it's up against a black backdrop or anything it's going to be even more go to scab right so yeah it's just trying to find the balance in there so and you were telling me something really interesting about these patterns here that look like yeah I'm computer vomited them out how does that exactly basically this is something that our design team put together it's basically just a bunch of non repeating patterns it's like they're all different colors and so the idea is that basically any of the cameras by seeing any of these patterns yeah they'll know exactly where they're looking at like you know this one you'll see oh here's the red one over here at the orange one though they'll be able to figure out spatially where the closest order because basically when it's putting it together it's like it's got to figure out where all the cameras were positioned right throwing aside you know what it's seeing from that angle cool now once you get your 89 photographs how do they get stitched together how does that work that's over over in this room we've got a couple of graphics guys that are just frosting it out on computers they've got got stacks of computers for them to be working on because this stuff it takes a while for it to do all the processing and then when it's all said and done the 89 images how big is that like stack of images what are we talking I just like we follow like started I mean it's like inert it's a bunch of JPEGs and said it's only like about 130 miles or so 130 yeah yeah Mick powder that's high all right yeah do you think what I'm wearing I can it'll work well I'm right here yet basically the patterns and stuff are definitely a bonus and everything for it the the dark colors can be a bit more difficult but I think that with this patterning and everything I think that we probably get something for an interesting out of it all right let's uh let's let's try down see if we can make this work all right cool all right let's do it ready alright so it's been a few hours the 89 photographs have been compiled into a 3d rendering of myself so I have it here on my computer let's check it out and look at that I can anchor it anywhere I want whoa that's pretty crazy I didn't you know these are these are viewing angles that no one should really ever have of me but nevertheless it looks really cool it's amazing how how seamless the the transition from each angle is I could zoom in and out I can see angles on my body that I've never seen before I'm not gonna I thought I was a little fatter than that and this is very flattering so I'm excited about that so we want to thank our buddies at gamespot we're hooking up the 3d photo if you're here in San Diego make sure you check out their booth for a chance to get your photo taken just like this and have a 3d rendering of yourself from comic-con 2013 i'm jeff beck a lot