For years I have had this particular idea that I wish someone would design, manufacture, and start selling. Here is the idea I have:
With better design, a cube frame could even be constructed allowing the photographer to produce a matrix of photos for every axis (top, side, front). With this matrix of insanely high quality and high resolution photos, the photographer could use a program or script to do render or generate several things:
- 3D textured model or environment
- Parallax map
- Natural bump map (artificially possible via software like Adobe Photoshop)
- 2D texture
- Scanned image (as though having used a flatbed scanner)
- This is different in that the idea is to construct an image that eliminates as much 3D perspective as possible
- Panorama (different styles; to better understand the descriptions, imagine a sphere with rectangular prisms extruding from it and the center of the matrix of photos focused smack dab straight on top of one of these extrusions)
- Center appears 2D and flat, but as you move towards the edges the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics leaning outward away from the center; like your typical panorama (convex fisheye)
- Center appears 2D and flat, but as you move towards the edges the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics leaning inward toward the center; like concave fisheye
- Edges of object appear 2D and flat, but as you move toward the center the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics by showing all sides; inverse of concave fisheye
- Center appears 3D showing all sides, outside edges of object appears 3D leaning outward away from the center, in between the center and outside is a 2D doughnut ring
- Custom
- Center appears 2D and flat, but as you move towards the edges the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics leaning outward away from the center; like your typical panorama (convex fisheye)
I had forgotten to note that the tubes would also be hollow (more common sense), not solid, and that they should come in 2-3' segments or something. My Canon t3i take 18 megapixel images (roughly 5200x2500 photos); that would be outrageously insane and high-end for application as a scanning device provided a tool like this idea. Some objects you could scan (let your imagination take it from there):
- Motherboard
- Apple
- Teapot
- A friend in deep and heavy sleep
- Laptop
- Firearms
- Model or toy vehicles (cars, airplanes)
- Dead insects, bugs, or animals
- Rocks
- Magnetic ferrofluid (I wonder if one could somehow record a 3D animation)
- Moving liquids or objects (even better if somehow you could record it with multiple cameras simultaneously, whether taking continous/burst photos or video)
Any questions and I will try to explain what I mean by particular elements of the concept draft.


