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"Science fiction is what scientists would do if they could - if they had enough grant money, enough time, and enough brains to do the wonderful things they would like to do."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Feeler-Planes | ||
| Special sensors that make extremely detailed three-dimensional models. |
Prior to his stay on Iszm, traveler Aile Farr was forced to sit still for an exquisitely accurate biometric identification method.
| "On the gray disk, Farr Sainh - palms forward, eyes wide."
He stood rigid as feeler-planes brushed down his body. In a glass dome a three-dimensional simulacrum of himself six inches high took form. Farr inspected it sourly. |
| Technovelgy from The Houses of Iszm,
by Jack Vance. Published by Better Publications in 1954 Additional resources -
|
The feeler-planes were able provide remarkable details about a surface - including finger-prints - in a completed tri-type record.
The problem of 3D model acquisition (the digitization of a real, three-dimensional object) is more difficult than you might think.
(Acquisition with light source, camera, calibration target, test object)
It is particularly difficult to obtain digital models that correctly capture fine texture details:
Several views of each object are captured with different camera and light source positions. For each view, we acquire a series of photographs of the object lit by the point light source, with varying exposure time from which a high dynamic range image [2] is calculated. After calibrating with the known brightness of the lamp, each pixel of the high dynamic range images contains full range, floating point radiance samples. Furthermore, we take two images to recover the light source position relative to the camera and one image of the object's silhouette to register the 3D geometry model with the images [8]. In a production environment, the 3D scanner, camera, light source, and the test object could be combined into single, calibrated gantry to speed up the acquisition process and to render the registration unnecessary.Read more at Digital Collection of Real World Objects.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Houses of Iszm
More Ideas
and Technology by Jack Vance
Tech news articles related to The Houses of Iszm
Tech news articles related to works by Jack Vance
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- Mini Statues Of You From 3D Images
- MIT 3D Scanner - 1000x Improvement?
- Scanify 3D Scanner For You!
| Climate Engineering In California Could Make Europe's Heat Waves Worse |
| Textiles That Harvest Energy And Store It |
| Coin-Sized Nuclear Battery Good For 100 Years |
| The FLUTE Project - A Huge Liquid Mirror In Space |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
