I suspect this may already exist, but I'd like to see an inexpensive (or not) camera that combines elements of a little laser tape-measure or sonic tape-measure, and a VR-style pano-camera. It would take a 3d "picture" of a room, and, using a dedicated graphics chip, turn the flooring into a floor, the walls into VR walls, etc, then store the whole file in one of the popular FPS formats (and/or .obj). This would be a useful thing not only for gamers but also for movie makers and VR apps generally. Not sure what it would look like, but the lens would probably be on the outside and everything else would be on the inside, with the exception of a spike-type tripod. The easiest way for me to visualize such a camera is that it would have a remote control, electronics, etc. at the center, coated by a spherical sensor chip, which in turn was connected to either a spherical array of lenses or fiber-optics on the outer shell.
-- cloudface, Oct 30 2004

Dimensionator tape measure http://www.kk.org/c...archives/000418.php
One component [cloudface, Oct 30 2004]

http://www.mediasculp.com/QTVR/ current typical VR camera site [cloudface, Oct 30 2004]

3D laser mapper... <object id="otvPlay...</embed> </object>
Now baked for your chewing, er, viewing pleasure. [cloudface, Aug 11 2010]

http://www.engadget...n-reminds-you-to-n/ [cloudface, Aug 11 2010]

Thanks Switzerland! We're almost gotz to baked! http://gizmodo.com/...om-100-small-lenses
New kinda camera, kinda. [cloudface, Dec 05 2010]

Getting Very Close Now w/Kinect http://www.youtube....watch?v=XejNctt2Fcs
Hand-held Kinect does 3D space [cloudface, Mar 03 2011]

I've had this idea before, and I think it could be done. A digital video camera, with some sort of sonar device attached. Take images and sonograms every yeah seconds, and take it home to a computer who uses this to rebuild whereever you visited.

Would take a while to complie, natch. I believe it already exists for faces.

And imagine using something like this to change your office, school, local park, &c., into a FPS map!
-- Almafeta, Oct 30 2004


CSI already incorporates something exactly like this for playing out scenarios,bullet trajectories,stuff like that
-- ~Cod Commando~, Jun 23 2005



random, halfbakery