What does love look like? If you could tell your life’s defining love story and see it materialize right in front of you, how would it twist and wind and bend and flow? Brazilian architect Guto Requena and D3 Studio are turning emotions into physical objects with The Love Project.

Each personalized object is made by mapping the complex emotions of a participant. Sensors are placed on each participant which measure voice, heart rate, and brain activity as the person tells his or her greatest love story.

Through a complex system of digital technology, those measurements are turned into three-dimensional shapes. The data is fed into a graphical algorithm editor where each stream of sensor measurements controls a different aspect of the soon-to-be object’s shape.

The speaker’s voice controls the velocity of the particles and the brain wave measurements control whether the particles attract or repel one another. The speaker’s heart rate determines the thickness of the object.

As the story is told, the object takes shape on a screen in real time. When the speaker is done, a completely unique 3D model has been created from the words and emotions they shared.

Requena didn’t want to simply create abstract forms, however; each Love Project model has a function. The program can produce a fruit bowl, a lamp, or a vase – which one forms is determined by the speaker’s emotions. Once the model has been completed, it can be 3D printed to create an actual, tangible object representing that specific love story.

The team behind the Love Project is working on a mobile phone app that will allow anyone to tell their own love story and see it created on the screen as a 3D model. Users will then have the option to send the model to a 3D printer, creating what will probably be one of the most endearing, personal gifts any person can give to a loved one.

The post Shape of Love: Program Turns Love Stories Into Objects first appeared on Gajitz.

Digital image editing used to be a supremely complicated job that only highly-trained professionals could do well. Photoshop let just about anyone dabble in image editing, and a new program called 3-Sweep could do the same for 3D image manipulation. The program was created by a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University. 3-Sweep makes it possible for even the novice user to extract single objects from photographs and turn them into easily-manipulated 3D models.

In the video demonstration, 3-Sweep’s mind-blowing abilities are demonstrated on simple and complex objects in photographs. With a few exceptions, the program easily outlines the object, fills in the background, texturizes and adds volume to the object. The object can then be resized, rotated, and edited in whatever way the user desires.

The possibilities for this technology are sort of delightfully intriguing. Besides allowing for complex editing, the program could allow users to place objects from their own lives into a digital environment like Second Life. 3-Sweep will need some work before it’s ready to be sold as a consumer product, but the researchers behind it are working on getting a demo version ready for the public.

The post New Software Makes Digital Models From Photos Like Magic first appeared on Gajitz.

Creating digital 3D models from photographs isn’t as difficult as it once was. These days, there is software that can do just about all of the work for you. But most of them take some sort of tedious processing and, until now, none have been able to show results instantly. A group of researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has created a system that uses nothing more than images from a regular digital camera to create instant digital 3D models.

As seen in the video above, the system works by reading position data from a series of photographs taken of the scene. Using the camera’s shifting positions, the system can figure out where in three dimensional space each of the objects sits. Although the very cool system is under development currently, the researchers don’t seem entirely sure what it can be used for; they are asking for suggestions on possible applications for their creation.

The post 3D Genius: System Develops 3D Models From Regular Photos first appeared on Gajitz.

Not more than 10 or 15 years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable to have the kind of photo-printing technology that we have in homes today, and 100 years ago no one could have imagined being able to scan and print documents at home. But printing technology is just bounding ahead, and today we have 3D replicators in universities and offices – no doubt they’ll soon be in our homes. Machines like the ZPrinter 350 and the self-replicating RepRap can actually take a programmed shape and turn it into a solid three dimensional object that you can hold in your hand. This technology has been rumored, dreamed about and fictionalized in TV and movies for years, but it’s finally arrived – and it’s almost as magnificent as we thought it would be.

Of course, it’s got its problems: it’s still expensive ($25,900 for the ZPrinter, 500 Euro if you want to build the RepRap at home), there are major size constraints, and obviously you can’t just replicate anything you see. But that’s being a little picky. Because, come on, replicating any object in three dimensions is pretty amazing. If you can’t afford the ZPrinter or don’t have the technical know-how to build the RepRap (or if you’re scared of the RepRap eventually gaining sentience, which you should be), you can always have Shapeways print your object of choice and send it to you. Programming a computer to make a custom three-dimensional shape for you? We are living in the future.

The post Pod Parts: 3D Replicators are Here, So is Future first appeared on Gajitz.