3D scanning has always seemed like something out of a comic book, but it’s always weird to realize how realistic the process is these days. Not only that, but people are taking it upon themselves to work the development into the designs of futuristic cars. The benefits are pretty immense, and we’re going to walk you through them (and that’s only because it can be a bit tricky term-wise if we weren’t here to keep it simple!). The scanner is known as the Zebedee scanner, and it has been developed by the national science agency of Australia. The 3D scanner makes use of and infrared laser to take measurements of peculiar distances, and the head of the 3D scanner makes its way back and forth across the measuring dial, which results in millions of points regarding the space covered.
This is where it gets good, because this development has actually managed to complete this process much quicker than the initial time, which is a couple days’ worth of rendering and work. The pictures the scanner is able to take are astounding, and this process takes merely minutes to complete (the timing is said to hover around 10 minutes or so, which is rather quick considering it’s supposed to take days). The developers had initially started working on the scanner because they wanted any cultural sites that could be considered major to be scanned (which would be places that are somewhat difficult to get to). Police would also find a use for this scanner, as it would give them the ability to scan any crime scenes and figure out if there was anything they previously missed (as well as refute the process of contamination when it comes to the site). Cops never want to be at a crime scene longer than they have to, there’s just too much to do on a daily basis when it comes to fighting crime, so this could be truly innovative for more than one purpose.
The developers have high hopes, and they actually want the police to pick up the technology and start to use it on crime scenes. There’s no telling how much better the judicial system (as well as police work in general) would get if there was a way to map out crime scenes on a 3D scale, and never mind that the entire process is easily done.