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.

The process happens pretty quickly and goes a bit like this.

Some of this tech was previously used by Microsoft for their Kinect sensor with Xbox 360 and Xbox One as a way of tracking depth and movement while you were playing some kind of dancing game or petting an imaginary fluffy tiger.

Right now, the final image isn't that accurate but the most important aspect is that it recreates depth from a number of different angles. This means its primed to go into a 3D printer and can be manipulated after the fact to create a more precise representation of colours and other detail.

There's no word just yet on when or even if this tech will be commercially available but Microsoft will definitely have plenty of interest from consumers.