[Mashable]

When the Xbox Kinect came out in 2010, most people drooled over its ability to read gesture-based commands.

Matterport founder Matt Bell, however, was more excited about the prospect of low-cost, high-quality 3D imaging.

As a co-founder of a company that makes gesture-based interactive display advertising (such as virtual soccer balls that can be controlled by a kick), Bell spotted an opportunity to create a new visual technology.

He ended up using Kinect to make Matterport, a handheld device that instantly creates 3D renderings of any space.

Seconds after pointing the device around a room, you can browse a 3D replica on your laptop.

Here’s the simplified version of how it works: The Kinect creates millions of individual images as it scans the room. Bell’s software stitches those photos together in real-time in order to create one 3D mesh image that can be tilted, rotated and annotated.

“You can think of it as a giant 3D jigsaw puzzle with millions of pieces that needs to be solved in real time,” Bell tells Mashable.

He pitched his latest protoype, which no longer includes an actual Kinect, at startup accelerator Y-Combinator’s demo day last month. …

Read the full story with video here: http://mashable.com/2012/04/03/matterport/