Point and Shoot 3D Modeling with 123D Catch

The cat sculpture above was created by one of our third graders in art class. It is a nice piece of work in the style of artist Laurel Burch. After it and others were displayed in the library for a couple of weeks students took them home.

We were able to create a 3D interactive digital replica simply through the iPad's camera and the 123D Catch app from Autodesk.

The app directs the user through a series of shots in order to capture all angles of a 3D object. After some rendering, the app sews together all overlapping images and creates a digital version. It is extremely easy.

The cool thing is that content created in any of the 123D apps can be further edited and developed via a companion Autodesk web app. The cat sculpture had a lot of excess space in the model like bookshelves and background that I was able to remove. Be warned though. Some of the models you send from your mobile device to the app can be pretty big and take significant time and memory to load. Once I cut out the extras, working with model was much smoother.

These models can also be printed at home if you have a compatible 3D printer or 3D prints can be ordered through Autodesk. If you thought the world of Maker Faires and 3D modeling was far beyond your tech savviness, this app makes the process as easy as point and shoot.