Tony Bignell is a creative engineer and inventor that has used
Shapeways to make a stereo macroscope and twin rig 3D camera
system. We asked Tones-3D, as he is known on Shapeways, to
explain his 3D printing projects to us. Tony Bignell: To talk
about the stereo macroscope, I really must talk about the whole
3-D twin-rig camera system, most of which uses parts printed by
Shapeways. It starts with the camera base. This allows me to
trigger both cameras simultaneously, using the USB socket (and
an ingenious camera software hack called Stereo Data Maker), and
a set of batteries-and- switch contained within the printed
baseplate. I use this setup for taking 3-D photos, but there's a
limitation: I must be a minimum of 2 meters from the nearest
part of the scene or there will be too much stereo differential.
The Stereo Macroscope works like a pair of sideways periscopes,
and reduces the minmum distance to about 600 millimeters; this,
plus a little bit of zoom-in on the cameras' lenses, allows me
to take some of the