[Linas] built himself an x-ray generator for a scholarship contest. We assume this wasn’t enough of a challenge for [Linas] because after the x-ray generator was done, he used his project to model objects in 3D (Google Translate link). It’s an amazing build, leaving us feeling sorry for the guy that came in second place to the home-made CT scanner.

The theory behind a CT scanner is fairly simple – take a series of x-rays of an object around an axis of rotation. From there, it’s a fairly simple matter to digitize the x-ray images to produce a 3D model. The hard part is building the x-ray generator. [Linas] used directional x-ray tubes, a few power supplies and from what we can gather x-ray film instead of a CCD sensor. The film was scanned into a computer and reassembled to get a 3D image.

[Linas] doesn’t seem too keen on giving away the schematics for his build to any old joker on the Internet because of the high voltage and radiation components of his build. Still, it’s an amazing build.

Check out the YouTube demo of [Linas]‘s CT scanner imaging an old computer mouse and a reconstruction of the same data done in MATLAB after the break.

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Researchers at the University of Utah have been able to detect movement in a room based on variations in wireless signals. Accurate to about a meter, they are using a 34 node wireless network to do their sensing.  As a person moves, they change the signals, and can therefore be detected. They state one possible application being rescue workers deploying multiple wireless nodes around a building to find people located inside.

[via Gizmodo]