*The 3DPrinter thing is hokum (because there are plenty of portable scanners around already), but the new scanning method sounds interesting, because it means augmentation registration with micron accuracy. Microns? The human eye can't even see microns.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/smartphone-enabled-replicators-may-be-three-to-five-years-away
(…)
"In just a few years, we could see the mass proliferation of DIY, smartphone-enabled replicators. At least, Caltech electrical engineering professor Ali Hajimiri and his team of researchers thinks so. They’ve developed a very tiny, very powerful 3D imager that can easily fit in a mobile device, successfully tested its prowess, and published the high-res results in the journal Optics.
"Hajimiri claims the imager may soon allow consumers to snap a photo of just about anything, and then, with a good enough 3D printer, use it to create a real-life replica “accurate to within microns of the original object.”
"It’s called the nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI), and it’s small—it spans just a single square millimeter, and therefore easy to integrate into a smartphone—and cheap, since it’s made out of silicon, like most sensors. It is also exceedingly accurate, Hajimiri says—it utilizes LIDAR, a remote detection and sensing technique that bathes the intended object in lasers.
" “In the NCI, the object is illuminated with this coherent light,” Caltech’s announcement explains. “The light that is reflected off of the object is then picked up by on-chip detectors, called grating couplers, that serve as 'pixels,' as the light detected from each coupler represents one pixel on the 3D image.”
"Hamiri tells me he sees the technology moving to mass market in three to five years…."
