Because why spend hours practicing when you can just scan yourself and have an app do the rest?
Some of us dance like no one's watching, and some of us dance like we have inner ear infections. But if you're one of the latter? No problem. The Döppeldancer is here to digitally clone you and convince everyone that you have some truly sick disco moves.
Created by Chaotic Moon Studios for this year's SXSW, the Döppeldancer first requires that you create a high-definition 3D model of yourself. This is accomplished by stepping into a 3D scanner, which rotates around you, capturing depth information through infrared (like a Microsoft Kinect) while also scanning your appearance. This data is then converted into a model, which can then be made to perform any dance move thanks to motion capture data, pre-recorded from some actual dancers.
The entire process only takes about five minutes, but the result? Even if you can't moonwalk in real life, the Döppeldancer can make it look like you can on Instagram.
For the purposes of SXSW, the tech behind Döppeldancer was only being deployed for a little bit of fun. Still, there's plenty of legitimately innovative use scenarios for this technology: the possibilities for filmmakers are pretty self-evident, but Chaotic Moon also points out that retailers could use this technology to allow customers to see how clothes fit—without ever having to step into a fitting room.