Amazing LEGO n' milk 3D Scanner 6 Jun 2007

Friedrich Kirschner has built a 3D scanner that's made out of LEGO, a bowl, a webcam and whole load of milk. Seriously.

How does it work? Well, he takes the item he wants to scan and drops it in some milk. Then he takes a shot of it using his webcam. Then he pours in some more milk and takes another shot. Then he pours in some more milk and takes another shot...and so on and so on...until the item is completely submerged. At that point, he measures up the milk in each shot to produce a semi-accurate cross-section outline of the item. And pullling all of these outlines together produces the final 3D image. Confused? Watch the video below and all will become clear:

The only problem, of course, is that the scanned items end up covered in milk. But hey, that's a small price to pay for DIY 3D!

Update: Want to build your own? Instructions are available here.

[via Gizmodo]