Yesterday Omar-Pierre Soubra, director of collaboration community at Trimble, stopped by the Berkeley Make: office to show us two exciting new apps they’ve been developing for Google’s Project Tango. SketchUp Scan and Through the Wall will debut at Google I/O today.
SketchUp Scan is an app that allows you to create an dimensionally accurate 3D model of your room by scanning corners and walls.
The Through the Wall app incorporates building information modeling (BIM) to enable the app user to see the important stuff hidden behind the wall, such as the cables and HVAC, in order to easily identify the exact location to do repairs or maintenance.
Soubra is excited about the possibilities that a device like Project Tango brings to developers.
My background is in 3D laser scanning. Back in the late 90s, we had designed a system that was about that big [he holds out his hands about 3 1/2’ wide] that was able to capture 70 points per second. And we could display that on huge Silicon Graphics, and you could turn about 40,000 points at the same time. It was just amazing.
Today’s technology enables us to capture information at the rate of about a million points per second, and go at distances that are way beyond anything we imagined. But even at that time in the late 90s, we were dreaming of having a 3D scanner in every home. We knew there was a potential for that. And Microsoft did that with the Microsoft Kinect on the Xbox. This is definitely a 3D scanner. I never dreamt at that time that I would have a 3D scanner in my pocket, right here. That is so exciting, it opens tons of new opportunities, possibilities for the professional world, but also for the makers.
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