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Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

I guess the endgame is that high-end 3d scanning functionality gets built into regular smartphones.

We will likely see 3D sensors get embedded into smartphones very soon but there are substantial trade offs in terms of size, power consumption, cost and performance. Also the consumer use-cases for 3D scanning are quite unclear. Hence what's going to be in phones will likely be used for enhancing AR applications / "Lenses" (proven use case) as opposed to capturing an accurate 3D representation of the world.

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I think there are lots of clear consumer use cases for this.

Like:

a) Scan a friend's face/head and then use an app to replace the hairstyle with something different.

b) Get a friend to scan your body (or scan your own feet) using your smartphone, then use that data to order custom outfits or shoes that fit perfectly.

I did some work to attempt this sort of thing using a kinect, back when they were newish. We were trying to automate the sizing of custom-fitted clothing. It was easy enough to get rough measurements, but very difficult to get repeatable and accurate measurements.

I suppose if you were just looking to see which of a set of sizes would work best for a person, it might be easier. Also, today's technology is better and I didn't really know what I was doing. :)

But still... fabric measuring tapes are cheap and easy to use, and they won't invade your privacy or try to sell you stuff like phone app developers inevitably will.

Something like this should have (at least) millimeter-precision. Way enough precision for clothing/footwear sizing.

> But still... fabric measuring tapes are cheap and easy to use

I disagree.

People tend to come in very unique shapes. Even a something "as simple" as a foot probably needs at least like 3-5 different measurements to something that really fits perfectly.

This is already happening with some of the low-cost mobile 3D sensor accessories out there (like Structure Sensor). Having it built into the phone is obviously where a lot of people want to see things go but there's definitely a prosumer class popping up that were priced out of traditional 3D scanners previously.

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