Wolverton: Autodesk's 3

Wolverton: Autodesk's 3 Last week, Autodesk updated its suite of 3-D printing and modeling applications, releasing an iPad version of 123D Catch, a program that creates a virtual object by stitching together two-dimensional photographs taken of a real-world one. The virtual objects created from those pictures were lifelike, detailed, seamless and mostly complete (there were the occasional holes where I either missed a spot in photographing or the program couldn't put the photos together). In its original incarnation, 123D Catch required several steps. That said, the program has some significant limitations. Autodesk introduced 123D Catch last fall, originally as a Windows program. The new iPad app makes that process much simpler. 123D Catch is worth a download if only for the sheer coolness of it, the ability to rapidly and easily turn photographs of an object into a 3-D virtual image. My conclusion was that while the new app is awesome, the suite remains very much a work-in-progress that is likely to greatly frustrate the average user. And the results are amazing. There's no uploading to your computer or importing to a separate program needed. The app collects those pictures into what the program calls a "project," which you can then send to Autodesk to convert into a virtual object. Thanks to that streamlining, the whole process can take as little as 10 minutes, from start to finish. Autodesk officials said they are planning on making an iPhone version, but declined to say when it might arrive. Wolverton: Autodesk's 3 Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 15/05/2012