Future Now
The IFTF Blog
"3D ""screen grabs"""
Michael Frumin is a researcher director at tech/art gallery Eyebeam's OpenLab. His latest project is the OpenGLExtractor (OGLE), essentially a "screen grab" application for 3D data. For example, Frumin used his software to capture a World of Warcraft character from within the game and physically rendered it using a 3D printer. He also mashed up characters from SecondLife and Google Earth, and imported chunks of Google Earth data into Maya.
OGLE seems to be a pretty amazing tool for blurring the virtual and real. From Mike's OGLE introduction:
The primary motivation for developing OGLE is to make available for re-use the 3D forms we see and interact with in our favorite 3D applications. Video gamers have a certain love affair with characters from their favorite games; animators may wish to reuse environments or objects from other applications or animations which don't provide data-level access; architects could use this to bring 3D forms into their proposals and renderings; and digital fabrication technologies make it possible to automatically instantiate 3D objects in the real world.