Apple got its hands on a patent for a rather ambitious project yesterday as the Patent Office opened the doors for the tech giant to develop 3D recognition software.
The technology will allow to identify 3D models of faces, tumours, vehicles and animals.
It will also be able to create a 3D picture of a face by scanning a photograph of the person in question.
The model could then be used to identify someone.
The technique is also accurate enough to be used to model organs and tumours within the body, allowing it to be re-purposed for medical projects.
More on the patent as follows:
“The recovered 3D shapes of blood vessels or organs recovered from 2D projections, eg, using X-ray imaging may be used for navigating steerable catheters or aiding physicians by displaying the recovered 3D shape.”
Apple has said that its face recognition feature could be used at border control points to scan one’s face without the person’s knowledge or cooperation.
Amongst the other patents awarded to Apple this week were those for video coding, virus scanning and a push notification system.