14 DAY TRIAL // Most hardware news revolves around the large variety of processing, graphics, storage, memory and display solutions and technologies released by companies, as well as the various legal battles that arise between them. The past few years in particular have been rather hard on creativity, with hardware makers focusing largely on cost reduction and efficiency improvements. Nevertheless, it seems that there is till room for uncompromising (cost-wise) creativity even in such harsh times. Ortery has introduced an innovative device, which it touts as the “world's first fully integrated solution for creating professional still photos and product animations in spherical, hemispherical and 360-degree formats.”
The company names its product the Photosimile 5000 and describes it as the world's first “office photography machine.” This desktop studio system is able to create professional product photos and includes a specially designed 3D box, where any suitably sized object may be placed and captured as a 3D picture.
In fact, the Photosimile is really a photocopier that makes 3D virtual replicas of whatever is placed inside it, such as shoes, toys or small sculptures among other things. The system uses four daylight bulbs, which provide a 6500K illumination, as well as a CANON DSLR on a mechanical track. The turntable rotates the object while the camera shoots up to 72 pictures per 360-degree rotation, form zero to 90 degrees.
The software does all the work, fully controlling the studio, the camera location, camera settings, picture taking, turntable movement and post processing. End-users must only decide what format to use when saving the 3D model, whether GIF or Flash. In addition, they can also convert the files into Microsoft Silverlight animations by using the Ortery Real3D format.
Unfortunately, the device's price tag is consistent with its sophistication. The Ortery Photosimile 5000 office photography machine is already selling for the high-caliber sum of no less than US$17,000 (£10,550).