A Texel Camera™ is being built that will rapidly generate full 3D models of objects. Objects will be rotated on a turntable while being scanned by the camera. These 3D models would be useful in many applications.

One potential application of this camera is in internet commerce: instead of squinting at a grainy jpeg, customers can get much better product information when they can rotate, zoom in on, and compare dimensions with the product’s 3D model.  This camera can also be used to model short-range environments, such as building interiors, when the camera itself is mounted on a rotating platform.

This camera is small, relatively inexpensive, highly accurate, and very fast due to the integration of a CMOS imager with a short-range continuous wave LIDAR. The camera is built for very high speed scanning (50,000 samples/sec) at short ranges (within 60 meters).

Textel camera used for 3D modeling