HP TopShot with 3D Scanner

So you just got a new pair of shoes. They’re one-of-a-kind so when you try to explain their appearance to a friend you just end up sounding like a fool. “Oh they’re blue and purple with the little pattern on the bottom” doesn’t qualify as an explanation, you need visuals. From personal experience, scanning a shoe is difficult. The damn lid won’t close and you just end up getting a picture of flat, black soles. Shoe-scanning technology has to be looked into. For now we’ll have to settle with the versatile, handy HP TopShot LaserJet Pro M275 ($399.99), or as we like to call it “that printer with the awesome 3D scanner”.

Yeah it also scans your average, lame 2D documents and copies documents but its “arm” that sits above the device, contains an embedded camera that allows you to scan any appropriate-sized 3D object. Appropriate-sized meaning don’t stand on the printer and expect it to produce a full-body shot, we tried it with the BladesGirls to avoid setting up a photoshoot…we ended up doing the photoshoot. Had it worked though, the printer’s ability to instantly upload a scan to the web would’ve made it immediately accessible to all you eager readers. The scanner creates a high-resolution 2D image from a 3D form by combining 6 different images it takes from different angles at different exposure levels. Additional software shipped with the printer also removes the extraneous background, leaving you with just an image of your object. If eBay users start to scan their objects with the TopShot we’ll no longer fall victim to the false advertisement found in standard online images.