Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!sarrel From: sarrel@tut.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: 3-D Graphics Question Message-ID: <2329@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: Thu, 26-Nov-87 01:44:56 EST Article-I.D.: tut.2329 Posted: Thu Nov 26 01:44:56 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 03:44:57 EST References: <1259@saturn.ucsc.edu> Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science Lines: 45 In article <1259@saturn.ucsc.edu> johnroc@ssyx.ucsc.edu (John Rocchio) writes: >I have digitized a photo of an African village taken from an unknown >altitude and an unknown angle. I am wondering if anyone can recommend >a program that can take this image and rotate it in 3-D so that I can >get an idea of the exact size of the fences surrounding the village, >from all angles. I tried to send mail, but the mailer bounced the letter back. Sorry. ===== The program you're asking for is in the area of computer vision. Such a program would be able to recognize the different elements in the picture (fences, buildings, etc) and construct an internal model of the scene. Once the internal model is constructed, any old 3D graphics display program could display it from any angle. However, the program to do that recognition probably hasn't been written yet. I'm not an expert on computer vision. My area of interest here in grad school is computer gaphics. However, I'm taking a computer vision course next quarter, so I guess I'll be and expert real soon :-). But, seriously, from what I know, the computer vision software that's been written works only on a very limited domain of objects. If you were to give your picture to such a program, it probably wouldn't give correct results. Even if such a program existed, it would be part of someone's research project and probably wouldn't be written for the Mac. Don't get me wrong, what you suggest is a wonderful and perfectly valid idea. The only problem is that you're several (many?) years too early. Recognizing objects in a photograph and contructing a 3D model is something that the human mind does very well, but that computers are not able to do yet. I'm sure that the U.S. government would love to be able to do this sort of thing witht their spy sattelites. However, if they can, they ain't saying how. Sorry to throw a wet towel on your idea, but I hope I helped. If you find out something significantly different from what I said, please let me know. I'd be interested to learn about it. -- Marc Sarrel The Ohio State University 611 Harely Dr #1 Department of Computer and Information Science Columbus, OH 43202-1835 sarrel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Disclaimer: Hey, what do I know? I'm only a grad student.