A company called Dekko has built an iOS app capable of scanning real-world items and recreating them in your Minecraft game.
The app is currently pending approval by Apple for sale in the App Store and has its roots in an earlier technology created by Dekko for another game. That title was Tabletop Speed (for iOS), which lets players drive 3D virtual cars around on real-world tabletops.
According to an explanatory post on reddit by portemantho, a member of Dekko, "we built a 3D reconstruction system for an augmented reality car game earlier this year. We thought it'd be cool to use that to export to other things like Minecraft."
A series of images demonstrates how the app works. Using the camera, you can select the object to be scanned. The app then overlays a 3D grid and can switch between the wireframe view and the camera view. When the user is satisfied, they press the "generate" button which creates a .zip file with the object information. This information can then be used to recreate the object in Minecraft using the 16 different colors of wool block.
To get a little more specific on the tech side of things, the resolution is limited to 128x128, and the app is intended to work with the slowest supported device (currently the iPad 2, iPad Mini, and iPhone 4S). The system works best when you're scanning at close range, but if you're hellbent on bringing large objects to life in Minecraft, you can scan them from a distance. The resolution is likely to suffer greatly, however, and you might end up with a cubular mess.
The ability to insert content from the real world into games does have some interesting implications, however. The recent cease and desist letter sent to Mojang, over the use of the trademarked term "Putt-Putt" by fans creating content for their games, highlights the fact that companies might not take kindly to trademarked logos and content being imported and potentially reworked or defaced. There's also the fact that we have seen more carefully crafted penis sculptures than we care to count in Minecraft worlds. An app capable of recreating items from the real world could, therefore, lead to some incredibly NSFW places.
Wired.co.uk asked the App Store if there was any word on the approval process, but we've not heard back yet. In the meantime you might be interested to know there's an app which does the polar opposite and lets you plop Minecraft creations into the real world using augmented reality. It's called Minecraft Reality, and you can read more about it on developer 13th Lab's website.
You can view the original story as it appeared on Wired.co.uk here.
reader comments
25