Imagine taking a photo of the Eiffel Tower while on a vacation to Paris. But that's not all. Imagine returning home with your phone, plugging it into a 3-D printer, and creating a tangible recreation of your photo—something you can hold in your hand or put on your mantel, a souvenir of your own making. Microsoft Research wants to make this happen.

The company's research arm has developed a smartphone app called MobileFusion that can 3-D print objects by instantly stitching together 2D photos you take with your phone's built-in camera. So far, MobileFusion is just a research project, so you can't download it yet. But it's a sure sign of things to come.

Several others are working on similar tools, including Google, software outfit Autodesk, and Australian startup Eora 3D. In addition to capturing images that can later be used for 3-D printing, these apps could also provide your phone with far more detailed data about your environment—which could come in handy for navigation apps or augmented reality games. And, yes, you could use them to take 3-D selfies.

More Possibilities

3-D scanners have been around for years, but they've typically come with a catch—or two. They can cost tens of thousands of dollars and they typically require a tether to a powerful computer. By turning a smartphone into a scanner, Microsoft has broadened the possibilities. "I think 3-D content is still not a first class citizen as a file format that we commonly think about," says Shahram Izadi, the project's principal researcher. "But once you reach ubiquity, we'll think about 3-D content the way they think about a [2-D] photo or a video."

Some of those possibilities are already being explored by Google as part of its experimental 3-D imaging system Project Tango. The company is, so far, less interested in 3-D printing and more interested in potential of offering more precise navigation. Project Tango isn't available for consumers yet, but Google opened the platform to developers last year and has and has partnered with Intel to bring Intel's RealSense 3-D cameras to smart phones.

Eora 3D

Lasers and Clouds

Eora 3D has approached the problem from a different angle. The Australian startup has developed a tripod and app designed to turn phones into high-end 3-D scanners. While MobileFusion relies on detecting the natural textures in an object to splice together a model, Eora 3D provides a laser built into the tripod mount that communicates with your phone over Bluetooth, allowing the app to make very precise calculations about the depth and shape of an object being scanned.

Founder Rahul Koduri says the gadget, which will cost around $200, is accurate up to 50 microns, putting it in the same category as many far more expensive 3-D scanners. The company plans to start selling its devices through a Kickstarter in the near future.

Meanwhile, Autodesk is already offering an app called 123D Catch. Unlike MobileFusion and Eora 3D, which handle all of the processing on your phone, Catch uploads images to the cloud, where they're stitched together into a 3-D model. That means using more data, and a lack of real-time feedback, but it's available to download today. Your personal souvenir of the Eiffel Tower isn't that far away.