3D Body Scanner Maker [TC]2 to Debut Avatar System

[TC]2, supplier of 3D body scanners, announced last week that it would be debuting its new avatar system, ImageTwin, at SIGGRAPH in August. ImageTwin will be available as an automated part of both the hardware/software offering and as an online service. TC2 says its avatars can contain over 100,000 vertices to define their surfaces, compared to 4,000 in Second Life avatars, though its system can be used to create avatars at both low and high resolutions. The major benefit, though, is in its speed, with ImageTwin processing around 25,000 vertices/second. Among several possible applications and partnerships, [TC]2 VP of Technology Development Dr. David Bruner says that virtual worlds are a potential focus.

"We anticipate both consumer and business uses," Bruner told Virtual Worlds News. "Our feeling is that as consumer "virtual worlds" develop in capability the need for higher resolution and quality avatars will be of high value in that segment.  At the one-to-one level these high-quality avatars can be run effectively in animation modes for virtual dressing simulation, etc, and we are working with one large company to roll this out for consumer dressing visualization applications."

The company is working with more than 10 commercial templates to enable various avatar applications, including cooperation with Daz3D. The company is also supporting the open-source X3D format and working with the Web 3D Consortium to enable future open-source formats.

"Today, we are actively working with several in the business sector - both in apparel product development applications which use virtual humans and also with one of the major ergonomic human simulation vendors," said Bruner.