You'd think we'd have Star Trek to thank for the gadget above, but not this time. When Weta Workshop brought the computer-generated character of Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings, the team probably didn't know its technology would have practical medical use. Weta used a combination of motion capturing and lasers to transform actor Andy Serkis into his ghastly onscreen counterpart. The lasers allowed Weta to read the shape and depth of Serkis's body and use that information to realistically render him on their computers down to the very last detail.

New Zealand's ARANZ Medical has fashioned this nifty wound scanner using the same methods. Called the SilhouetteMobile, the device can scan and store information about a wound's width and depth, which helps nurses track healing over time as new tissue fills in the injury. Sounds great to me, because it appears that nurses often have only one method available to them — eyeballing a wound. Using the SilhouetteMobile, medical professionals have an easy way to create far more accurate visual and digital records they can then share with patients and other facilities alike.
— Kevin Hall

ARANZ Medical, via MedGadget