3d Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPad App: UpNext 3D delivers free maps

by Mel Martin (Jan 23rd, 2012)

I love maps. I've had printed atlases for years, I have globes all over the house, and I had some of the early mapping applications for the Mac like DeLorme Street Atlas. Sadly, DeLorme abandoned the Mac years ago. Suffice it to say that any new mapping application will get my attention right away. ...

Sculpteo brings 3D printing to the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (Jan 17th, 2012)

Sculpteo is a fascinating French company that's working to bring 3D printing to the masses. The company had a booth at CES, and while some of our chat with them had to go through a French/English barrier, they very nicely explained to us how they're doing business and allowing almost anyone to ...

TerraRay for Mac doubles rendering speed and drops price for 1 week

by Mel Martin (Dec 2nd, 2011)

I've enjoyed using TerraRay for some months. It's in the tradition of terrain creation apps like Bryce, but at a much lower price. I don't think it is quite as photo realistic as some other 3D landscape programs, but it is continuously upgrading features and quality. TerraRay 6 is just out, and ...

Apple acquires 3D mapping company C3 Technologies

by Chris Rawson (Oct 29th, 2011)

Apple has extended its mapping services to a number of mapping companies over the past few years. The company has reportedly been working on building its own solution to maps and navigation on the iPhone, beginning with its acquisition of Placebase in 2009 and continuing with a "crowd-sourced ...

Daily iPad App: Quaternion Julia Raytracer HD

by Mel Martin (Sep 15th, 2011)

Of the many things I expected my iPad to do, ray tracing was not one of them. The ability to make realistic looking objects with accurate reflections was originally the domain of high end workstations, but over the years it has migrated down to laptop and desktop class computers. Now the ...

Daily iPad App: Solar Walk

by Mel Martin (Sep 2nd, 2011)

Want to tour the Solar System? Solar Walk is a just-updated universal iOS app that allows you to do just that. The new version has support for 3D, so you get some rather stunning renditions of planets and satellites that are more realistic than what's available in a 2D presentation. I reviewed ...

3D printed toy features the runner from Canabalt

by Mike Schramm (Jul 8th, 2011)

It's no Angry Birds toy, but I like the idea of this Runner figurine. It features the little guy from the popular iPhone game that spawned a genre, Canabalt. Not only does the resemblance to the little pixelated guy shine right through, but the figure is actually 3D printed in color, and then ...

iPad rigged up with 3D screen in Taiwan

by Mike Schramm (Jun 14th, 2011)

Display Taiwan 2011 is going on in Taiwan this week, and at a booth for a company called CPT, there's a device on display that looks very much like an iPad (though with the actual Apple logos and identifying information covered up) that's been Frankenstein-ed together with what appears to be a ...

3D scanner app captures models using iPhone camera

by Chris Ward (Apr 20th, 2011)

Here's a cool addition to the "iOS-devices-can-do-just-about-anything" list: using a US$0.99 app to turn your iPhone 4, iPad 2 or latest-generation iPod touch into a 3D scanner, replacing hundreds of dollars worth of last year's technology. Trimensional was developed by Grant Schindler, a ...

History 3D brings the Civil War to life

by Brett Terpstra (Apr 12th, 2011)

Just in time for the anniversary of the Civil War, History 3D for iPad brings the past to life. If you have a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses (the red and blue kind) handy, it gets even better. There are two dozen pictures to view in black and white and anaglyph 3D. The 3D images were taken using ...

iPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking

by Samuel Gibbs (Apr 11th, 2011)

Now that the iPad 2 has a front facing-camera and some decent horsepower under the hood, there's a lot of potential for really interesting camera-plus-screen coordination hacks. The clever folks over at the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research group have managed to combine a feed ...

Fruit Ninja live, bring your overcoat

by Dana Franklin (Mar 28th, 2011)

Your virtual overcoat, that is. Students in a virtual reality workshop at the FH Wedel University of Applied Sciences cloned Fruit Ninja, the best-selling game for smartphones and tablets, in 3D using the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The result is a life-size, fully immersive fruit ...

3D music video was shot with two iPhone 4s

by Kelly Hodgkins (Feb 25th, 2011)

Forget about the Android-powered LG Optimus 3D with its fancy 3D camera, all you need to make a 3D video is a couple of people, two iPhone 4s, and a healthy dose of enthusiasm for filming. The folks at Atomic Cheesecake productions were up to the challenge and put together a 3D music video ...

Rapunzel 3D and Goldilocks 3D: Two gimmicky and unfocused e-book apps

by David Winograd (Jan 18th, 2011)

Rapunzel 3D and Goldilocks 3D are two US$1.99 interactive children's books from Bacciz Apps. I'm sorry to say that they're also not very good. They are complicated, inconsistent, and neither provides a satisfying story. Both titles use elements often seen before in other interactive children's ...

Video: Glasses-free 3D using iOS accelerometer and camera

by Mike Schramm (Jan 17th, 2011)

Here's some speculation that definitely came from the House of Crackpot Theories, but since it's kind of a slow day with the holiday today, feel free to let your imagination run wild. This video suggests that the next iPod touch could use its internal gyroscope and the FaceTime camera for a sort of ...