I have played with software for converting digital photographs of a real-life object into a 3D model. While strolling across UNC’s campus, I walked in a circle around a stone pillar, taking video of the pillar with my phone’s camera. I then used Avidemux (free video editing software) to break the video into still frames. I imported a selection of those frames into 123D Catch, free software from Autodesk. 123D Catch uploaded the photos to their servers for processing, and then returned a textured, 3D model of the stone pillar. The results aren’t perfect, but I am impressed by this nascent technology. I have been considering the potential project possibilities for this sort of thing. I also discovered an Open Source software package that offers similar capability: Insight 3D.