Any smartphone can be a 3D scanner with help from Microsoft

Researchers at Microsoft are working on a way to turn your smartphone into a sophisticated 3D scanner, using just your camera

3D scanning is a booming industry, especially as 3D printers start to become available to consumers. But what if you don't have access to an advanced 3D scanner to create complex maps of the objects you want to recreate? Well Microsoft is working on a solution.

A team of researchers is currently working on something called MobileFusion - which is aimed at creating an app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone which will use the smartphone camera to create a 3D model. The basic steps involve taking a number of photos of an object from many different angles in order to get accurate geometric data. From there the software will be capable of building an accurate 3D model.