Structure Sensor Closes $1.3M Kickstarter for 3D Scanner iPad Add-On

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Last month, San Francisco-based hardware startup Occipital launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to turn your iPad into a powerful 3D scanner.

Their product is called the Structure Sensor, and the company pulled in $1.3 million from Kickstarter, wildly beating their goal of $100,000.

The Structure Sensor is the world’s first 3D sensor for mobile devices. It gives mobile devices a new sense – the ability to not just capture the world as two-dimensional images, but to actually understand it in three dimensions.

This enables a completely new set of mobile applications, including:

• 3D mapping of indoor spaces for instant measurements and virtual redecoration.
• Augmented reality (AR) games where virtual objects interact precisely with the geometry of the physical world, including occlusions.
• 3D object scanning for 3D content creation with no knowledge of CAD required.
• Body scanning for fitness tracking and virtual clothes fitting.
• Virtual reality games using 3D environments imported from the real world.

Occipital sells the Structure Sensor kits (retail or the hackable version) for $349. You can still pre-order for shipment in April 2014.

The 3D printing community is getting excited about it too

Many of the uses for Structure are related to augmented reality and entertainment, but it also can be used as an object 3D scanner. In the 3D printing world, 3D scanners have had a surge in popularity over the last 6 months, between the launch of the MakerBot Digitizer desktop 3D scanner, a handful of Kickstarter campaigns, and the 3D Systems Sense 3D scanner.

Structure is the newest entrant in the 3D scanning world, and some of the key folks in the industry are sharing their excitement.

“We can’t wait to play with one of these around the MakerBot office,” said Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot.

Josh Levine, VP of Engineering for Shapeways is also excited about the opportunities with the technology. “For me the challenge has been in creating 3D objects. This completely obliterates that challenge,” he said.

Learn more at structure.io.

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