   Photos into 3D
  I believe there are programs that turn a few photos into a 3D object.Is that true?How much such a program cost?And what are the limitations and requirements of the software to turn several pictures into a 3D model?Thanks in advance.   
  Google: imaged based modellinghttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=image+based+modelling&btnG=SearchTheoretically it should be possible with image recognition algorithms, and I think the field is in development, however I don't think it is quite mainstream yet (I could be wrong...). Hope this helps,JVFF   ;Not quite what you're talking about, but cool anyway;Exactly what you are talking about.As to the price, well...Quote:3DSOM Pro is available worldwide for the recommended retail price (RRP) of £1495 GBP + VAT (about 2750 US Dollars or 2200 Euros depending on current exchange rates).;  One algorithm that isn't too complex to understand is described by the following paperPhotorealistic Scene Reconstruction by Voxel Coloringby Seitz and Dyer (IJCV 1999)All of these types of methods tend to be a big pain to implement though because you need to worry about calibrating all of your cameras and such.  There are limitations to methods that only use straight up geometry to reconstruct a scene due to the fact that you're basically trying to invert an inherently uninvertible projection function.The other big thing is that these methods generally work best for materials that have nice diffuse reflectance distribution functions.If you just want a 3d scanner, there's another method which is cheaper described by Pietro Perona and Jean-Yves Bouguet (I 'think' the title is: 3d photography on the desktop).  For this you you have a camera, and a lamp which you aim at the object you want to scan.  Then you wave a pencil across the object while taking pictures.  Then you figure out where the shadow of the pencil is at each frame and triangulate.  This is a poor man's laser range scanner.  ;  More of the same... http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/16478/Computers_Can_Soon_Transform_2D_Images_Into_3D   ;  That project is really cool stuff, but it doesn't actually return a true 3d model in the sense that a laser range scanner would.  Basically it discovers that things are sky, ground, vertical, horizontal etc - and projects these things to planes.  It's also hard to predict when the system will actually figure out a meaningful result, whereas for the geometric methods, you can basically tell when you'll get a reasonable 3d model out. From a single photograph, it is really impressive, but one can only hope for so much from a single photograph.  ;  Another word to google: photogrammetry.Also: how to build your own 3D scanner. Funny :)   