Spinning 360

Vinyl-loving hipsters aren’t only ones spinning turntables these days. One rotation of the PhotoCapture 360 turntable from Ortery Technologies (www.ortery.com; Irvine, CA) and designers can snap between four and 200 photos to create a Flash-based 360° view of their product. The purpose: to provide a full image of a product that can be shared over the ‘Net during product development discussions.

The turntable syncs up with the digital camera through a USB port, allowing the PhotoCapture 360 process flow software to coordinate its movements – either clockwise or counterclockwise – with the camera settings. Snapping 20 pictures takes about 2 minutes. It creates a Flash file that’s typically less than 500 kB, so it can be readily emailed The turntables come in three different sizes, from 11.4-in. to 31.5-in. diameter and with weight capacities up to 700 lbs.