Digitizing real-world resources is anything but simple. Even with major improvements in technology, experts have to invest a lot of time and money to get satisfactory results. The people at Epic Games plan to change that by starting a new era in photogrammetry, bringing all their firepower to compatible smartphones. The new app RealityScan takes the best of the RealityCapture platform and puts it in our pockets to generate 3D models with your phone camera.
Think about every object in next-generation video games. Cups, pencils, chairs, computers, and all that usually goes unnoticed. Now think about virtual reality guides, with users exploring ruins or historical sites around the world. From the tiniest to the gigantic, realism is non-negotiable. Developers must pay attention to every detail and make sure each model is reproduced perfectly.
If it's so complicated for professionals, what's left for the casual user? Luckily, some companies are responding with very interesting resources, and one of them is Epic Games. If we look beyond the money-printing machine that is Fortnite, Epic actually has some very interesting technologies, starting with RealityCapture, its main photogrammetry software. What does Epic have in store now? It's RealityScan, an iOS-compatible app to generate 3D models with your phone camera, bringing the essence of RealityCapture to mobile devices.
RealityScan: New app to generate 3D models with your phone camera
The demo's message is very clear: RealityScan will be very easy to use, carrying enormous potential for professionals and beginners alike. The user starts by capturing multiple records of the object to digitize. Once the scanning is done, RealityScan takes care of creating a realistic model almost immediately, and from there you can do whatever you want, including publishing your creations to the Sketchfab platform to share and sell this kind of content.
So, how can we try RealityScan? For now we can't. The app is in a closed beta phase, and the ten thousand spots under Apple TestFlight are already taken. That leads us to another technical detail: Initially, RealityScan will be available for Apple devices with iOS 14.5 or later, while Android users will have to wait a bit longer to generate 3D models with your phone camera.
**Official announcement:** Click here
