Jo Yardley has an article on her blog about 3D Sweep, a program that Rod Humble tipped her off about. The program is unique in that it uses techniques similar to what humans use to see 3D objects in 2D photos.
Jo’s article is: Stunning but easy 3D modeling from photos. She includes the video I have here.
A more detailed explanation of the software is at Singularity Hub here: Israeli Researchers Debut Software That Extracts 3-D Objects From Photos.
The article explains, “Shamir and his colleagues haven’t decided yet whether to pursue 3-Sweep as a commercial product, but they are continuing to improve the software and have applied for a patent on what they’ve accomplished so far, Shamir told Singularity Hub.”
Since they are patenting it, I would assume someone will make commercial software out of this technique. That will take some time so we likely will not see this out for use any time soon.
Researching things on the Internet usually gets me side tracked into other interesting things. There are other tools being developed or that are now available for making 3D models. A coupe are:
Handheld 3d Scanner Lets You Digitize Objects And Rooms In Minutes
Artec 3D scanner
And my March article on: New 3D Modeling Tool – 123D Catch Review