Video game- and eye-inspired 3D camera can work outdoors

A device developed for video gaming has proved top be the key to a new, inexpensive type of cameras which can produce 3D images. The Micorsoft Kinect system, which uses optics to capture the movement and gestures of players to control the actions of their in-game avatars, provided the inspiration for Oliver Cossairt of Northwestern University in Illinois to develop a new imaging system that overcomes some of the drawbacks of the Kinect system, such as being able to work outdoors and producing higher-quality images.

Kinect works by projecting light patterns onto the player and detecting their reflections, with internal software estimating how far from the unit the reflection took place and using that information to build up a 3D image in its processor. This is fast, but much less precise than, for example, industrial laser scanners, which collect data by scanning across a whole scene and collecting data on single-point reflections.