Apple Imagines A World You Digitize By Touch, And They Aren't Alone

As creative apps go mobile, companies are developing new tools to capture the world.

Apple has filed a patent application for a stylus that you can touch to any surface, take a photo, and store the texture and color data into a 3-D image file. Easy to imagine: you're sitting at Starbucks, drawing on your iPad. You need to add a nice wood grain to a render that you're working on, and instead of searching for one via online databases, you simply tap your pen to the table, digitize the walnut finish, and add it to your scene.

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