Mind-Bender: Software that Converts 2D Objects into Manipulable 3D Ones

If you’re a 3D modeler, you likely know the pain of trying to model something with nothing more than a photo as a source. It’s time-consuming, and tedious – to say the least. With 3-Sweep, though, that hassle could soon become a thing of the past, as it allows you to pull an object straight out of a photo and turn it into a 3D object. Admittedly, this seems a little far-fetched, but this video could help you become a believer:

The software comes from researchers at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and Tel Aviv University, although it’s not available for public consumption yet. Given what it can do, it seems likely that some mega multimedia company will snatch it up, such as Autodesk or Adobe, unless the team has other plans.

With 3-Sweep, you draw two points on an object and then with a quick drag of the mouse or pen, highlight the rest of the object. If an object isn’t simple, you can grab multiple parts of the object in order to grab the entire thing.

The most impressive example seen in the video has to be the telescope, where each major part is extracted from the photo and turned 3D, and then manipulated – either to shrink down or scale up. In another example, a candle-holder is manipulated to duplicate some of the holders and change the size of one of them.

This technology is undeniably impressive, and while there are going to be obvious limitations, this could ease the workload of many who have to create 3D objects from scratch.