Top Ten Reasons I Like High Resolution / Projected Light (HR/PL)…

1. It looks better and my eyes respond in a more direct way that enables my brain to extract more information from what I’m looking at.

2. Projected light masks surface reflections that distort and distract.

3. The art is the source of the light (some deep meaning here that could fill volumes).

4. More detail (resolution) equals “more real”. I enjoy experiencing “the real” as I feel a direct connection with what I’m viewing. That emotional component is special in my opinion.

5. So much resolution is lost prior to finally getting to the brain. Start with more resolution and you have more to process, once it gets to the brain.

6. HR/PL presents with importance and generates conscious awareness from what would otherwise reside in the subconscious.

7. If the artwork is the light source, it is self contained in a way that does not degrade because of its surroundings.

8. Sharper and brighter vs. blurry and duller? Which do you pick?

9. In my opinion, it is always preferable to be able to look closer and perceive more detail.

10. All living things generate heat, which is light, albeit outside the range of what is generally thought to be perceived by the receptors on the retina and transferred to the visual cortex. However, to me there is something special in the notion that living things emit light whether our retina’s can perceive it or not. In my opinion, we do perceive it in some fashion. I “see” something fundamentally different when I look at something alive vs. something dead. For me, projected light infers life and purly reflected light… well, not so much.

 

I also think that projected light infers reality whereas reflected light infers referential experience. Of course, there are exceptions – but in general, I think that humans respond to imagery with high resolution / projected light in a way that is “more real”.

What do you think?

 

Why “Enhanced Viewing Experience” is the wrong way to think about 3D.

In my opinion, there is something fundamentally wrong about the way “3D” is being characterized by those in the know. For the most part, the arguments by the proponents of 3D say it is the same as when sound or color were added to motion pictures. They like to talk about enhancing the viewing experience.

The reason why I believe this characterization is wrong is based upon the following:

One of the ways we know we are perceiving “reality” is that we are able to percieve what we are looking at as occupying physical space. That tells us it is real. Cavemen weren’t confused looking at drawings on a wall as to whether they were real or not. They understood the drawings were representative of something real. The same can be said of all imagery since those first drawings were made. Paintings, drawings, photographs and motion pictures have all been perceived as referential. We watch them knowing we need to interpret what they represent as compared to perceiving what we see as experiencing something real.

An exception to the above is when we see and perceive physical space at a Broadway show. But the context of the event makes it clear to our perceptions that we need to interpret what we are seeing as opposed to experiencing reality as it unfolds.

Technology is making it possible to blur the distinction between what we should perceive as referential imagery and what we should experience as reality. That is something new and different. It goes far beyond “enhancement”. That’s because we are monkeying around with human perception of reality and asking the brain to weave in and out of referential and real perceptions. For me, it is easy to understand why some people feel discomfort when they are presented with a stream of perception conflicts.

With the above in mind, it is my hope that an analysis of my images at CalTech will reveal brain processing pathways that are different for images with depth as compared to single perspective images. My hope is that fMRI imaging will show different parts of the brain lighting up for things presented in stereovision. And then to understand what that information means.

Now Open: Stone Mill Art Gallery!

Finally open, yea! I decided to open this art gallery as a location to showcase collaborations between myself and other artists. Since I have spent so much time setting up a state-of-the-art printing facility, I decided to offer some of its benefits to artists to create simply amazing giclée prints. My Barbierie spectrophotometer linked to the Ergosoft RIP and Epson printers offers (to my eyes anyway) the best print quality I have ever seen from an inkjet.

Other great news includes a new engraved cast lens material that makes it possible for me to create the best lenticular images I have ever seen anywhere. The culmination of years of experimenting has finally paid off.

But the above is only half of the story. My new Hasselblad H4D 200ms camera is what amazes me most. 200 megapixel images times 36 or more perspectives (up to 72) has just knocked me out! I just laminated a life size (46″ tall) AMPED 3D photo of a hand carved guitar to my new lenticular lens material and the results are the best I’ve ever seen, period! By a large margin…

So, the gallery will be a great place to showcase this amazing new combination of things that has resulted in AMPED 3D photographs with brilliant clarity and depth.

Please come! That image on the left is my version of the Harry Potter “come alive” portrait where artist Jim Plesh talks about his art and philosophy.

The Stone Mill Art Gallery
165 Main Street, Suite 113
Medway, MA 02053
t. 508-533-6230
http://stonemillart.com

Update on what’s happening…

Sorry for the delay in posts. So MUCH is happening that just sitting down to write has gone by the wayside. The biggest hold up is I am waiting for a new super delux spectrophotometer to more accurately color profile my Epson large format printers. The kind of work I’m doing now really requires greater color accuracy than I was able to get with my “lower cost” spectrophotometer. Hopefully, it is going to show up in a day or two as I’m really backed up on my printing!

I’m sending some calibration and test images to CALTECH and so that should start to begin in earnest by the end of November. I can’t wait to learn about how the brain lights up when viewing my images.

I have about four or five people working hard to get my art gallery open by November 19th. Named “The Stone Mill Art Gallery” for the Mill I inhabit, this art gallery is going to be quite a bit different from your average art gallery. I’ll have more details soon, but in the meantime you can check out The Stone Mill Art Gallery on Facebook (it is in Medway, MA)

Last, but not least, I have been hard at work developing a brand new art form. This is so over the top that I’m applying for a patent. Each piece of art (it is big at 3′ x 4′ and larger) takes about a month from beginning to end to produce. I can’t talk much about it yet, other than to say I have had excellent success with making it work and am now confident that it will work, exceeding my expectations by a good measure. Impossible to describe, but it is essentially real imagery multi perspective and multi dimensional. You definitely see things you’ve never seen before and this art answers the question: “what type of imagery HAS to be in 3D to be seen?”

I’ll try and follow up with the above before the end of the month of November 2011…

Thank You CalTech! The Brain On AMPED 3D!

I couldn’t be more thrilled – the PhD’s at CalTech in Pasadena have agreed to begin a collaboration with me to study fMRI imaging of the brain while test subjects look at single perspective and AMPED 3D images.

I made a presentation regarding the possibility to transition from referential imagery to imagery that, in many ways, can be perceived in a real way. This is something that multi perspective imagery can facilitate, in my opinion. Now, with fMRI data, this theory can be proven- or at least some light can be shed on the subject.

The reason this is so important to me is that, for a long time, I have been convinced that there is an emotional connection to multi perspective imagery that is fundamentally different as compared to single perspective imagery. I want to understand this difference and through that understanding, advance the art in new and exciting ways.  If you think about it, it is very radical – this notion that imagery can be experienced as “real”. It presents a paradox to the mind and I believe there are parts that are very positive and parts that are negative.  For example, when we look at a drawing there is no confusion about the fact that the drawing is a drawing. We immediately interpret the drawing in a referential way. When looking at a multi perspective photograph we see the space between things and there is a moment where it isn’t clear whether or not what we are looking at is real, given that we can see into the photograph. My question is how far can this “realness” be extended? What happens at the tipping point where the decision happens regarding whether to perceive the image as real or referential? What parts of this experience are positive and what parts are negative?

Stay tuned, this journey is about to get very interesting!

Mark Changizi, Huffington Post – Article Comments

Neuroscientist and author Mark Changizi wrote an article on September 1st that raises some issues I’d like to comment on. First, read the article here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-changizi-phd/3d-movies-binocular-vision_b_942795.html

He tries to make the point that 3D is more than stereovision (aka stereopsis) and that it is “binocular vision”.  And furthermore that this should make it possible to “…render what it is truly like to view the world from the perspective of another…”

There are some fundamental problems with that. The way human DNA is currently “programmed” we do primarily two things when we observe. We lock onto an object and track it as it moves (or we move) and we jump around with our eyes to focus on parts of our field of view – usually influenced by something that suddenly moves. We don’t pan our eyes from left to right. We don’t zoom. We don’t converge our eyes and then over time adjust focus – we do both simultaneously. What we look at (and when we look at it) are influenced by our previous experiences and our interests. This makes everyone unique in terms of what they look at, when they look at it and so forth. The visual pans and rack focus, etc., typically done in a movie and as part of storytelling go counter to how we perceive the world and it is difficult to imagine predicting and exactly matching what is presented on screen in a way that an entire audience would focus and converge on. To “…truly see out of the eyes of another…” seems very unlikely or at best extraordinarly difficult and very limiting in terms of what the content could be (essentially creating a constant area of focus and convergence on the screen with content that invokes everyone in the audience to track something specific on screen).

As to including the character’s nose and other visible body parts as a way to “be the body of the character…” goes counter to real world experience (our brain blocks the visual awareness of seeing our nose in a unique way for each person).

All of this gets back to a common theme on this blog… the brain. The world can certainly be presented now with compelling 3D and binocular vision. But it is up to each individual’s brain to interpret what is presented and what parts of the scene capture the attention and imagination of the audience. It is far easier to influence where people look with a single perspective movie. Indeed, orders of magnitude easier! That’s why I think traditional filmmakers are going to have a hard time with 3D and many will turn away from it altogether – and for good reason!  Eye tracking data shows that people do not look at the intended area of interest on the screen during a 3D movie like they do with a single perspective movie.  For a 3D movie the eyes jump around all over the scene because with the addition of 3D there is simply a lot more to look at.

If you think about it, storytelling is not about taking in reality (which is the primary mission of stereopsis vision currently). Storytelling is about engaging the imagination and this really goes against what binocular vision is all about. There is a serious disconnect here that deserves thought and consideration. I think that the success of animation and surreal cinema depiction (Avatar) makes it easier to engage the imagination because the brain isn’t trying to interpret things as reality. Live action 3D motion pictures are different. The best ones seem to be about depicting a scene in a way to experience it in a real way. Documentaries in particular. But when the sizes of the objects depicted on screen create a disconnect with how things are perceived in reality, I believe the subconscious mind gets confused and negative feelings are evoked.

I am flying to CALTECH in Pasadena on Sept. 30 to talk with researchers there about studying these very things. Binocular vision imagery constructs and how the brain interprets them… It is highly complicated and we have a great deal to learn to push 3D imagery making into the next stage of development.

Seeing With The Brain.

Common sense tells us that we see with our eyes. Afterall, when we close our eyes we stop seeing. Right?

Well, when you think for a minute you realize that’s not true. There is this thing called the mind’s eye and dreaming and envisioning, etc. Truth is, the eyes are little more than data acquisition devices that feed the brain with information. Actually, to be more precise; the eyes stream flawed data to the brain with tons of errors and giant missing pieces of data.

The amount of processing the brain performs to make vision possible is staggering. Scientists have written that up to 1/4 of the entire brain is involved in vision processing and interpretation. How we see and what we see is influenced by everything we have seen before. It is also influenced by what we hear, what we smell, what we taste and what we touch. Don’t believe it? Well, science proves it. One example, off the top of my head, was demonstrated at an audio engineering society convention in New York City many years ago. There were rooms with different resolution video monitors and different speaker systems. As it turned out, the room deemed to have the highest video quality was not the one with the best video monitor, but the one with the best sound system.

Much of the time what we think we see really doesn’t match with reality. Much of what we see doesn’t even make it out of our subconscious. So, when 3D cinematographers obsess over camera spacing (inter-axial distance) and convergence and depth of field as it relates to eye geometry, they are misguided in my humble opinion. The brain is not limited to the geometry of the eye, or it’s limitations. If it was, we would have two big black circles where the eye has no receptors (where the optic nerve is connected).

Indeed, how we see and what we see varies greatly from person to person. Then, there are people with eye problems and vision impariment. People that can’t fuse and have double vision.  Who’s to say that in a room filled with 99 people who have strabismus and one person who can see with stereopsis that the people with strabismus wouldn’t be “normal” given that they represented the majority?

How the majority of people see is the result of evolution and natural selection. Human vision is not the best of what nature can create. There are examples of eyes that are superior to human eyes in terms of clarity, detail, color, focus, etc. In the near future, there will be machine to biological connections that might enhance or even replace our eyes with superior devices.

My point to this rambling is that it is a mistake to limit the way multi perspective imagery is created to analytics based solely on eye geometry and how the eyes work. As I begin my research into analyzing the brain and how it responds to multi perspective imagery, I hope that there are discoveries that enlighten and enrich our perception of the space between things and the importance of textures and reflective properties to the interpretation of the world around us.

There is more to it than this:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/imagepages/9708.htm

Does This Light Look Funky To You? Are My Retina’s Burning?

Am I the only one that sees something that doesn’t look quite right in a room illuminated with CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs or fluorescent lights? They do not emit the same kind of light as “regular” light bulbs or the sun – but does that matter? Well, I kind of think it does. Check this out:

And look at the spikey nature of the light from this diagram on wikipedia:

http://tinyurl.com/3zmg4b3

And given that this type of light uses UV light to create visible light is there any potential for retina damage? I’m no doctor but I can’t imagine UV light is good for retina’s? Can one of you vision guru’s out that that read my blog weigh in on this?

Thanks!

 

The Trend Towards Authenticity… Image Authenticity!

Finally! A growing backlash against photoshopped artificial image constructs. Thank you.

I’ve waited a long time. Back in 1999 with the release of the Matrix movie, written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano and others (a very good cast by anyone’s standards) I really thought there would be a widespread recognition that there was a difference between “real” and “alternate” realities and perceptions. It has taken over a decade for people to really start paying attention and noticing that most of the imagery of today is FAKE!

The simple reason is the proliferation of cheap digital cameras and cameras in phones and the massive distribution network of the internet. Just take Hugo Weaving as an example. A quick Google search of “Hugo Weaving photo” yields over 20,000 results! Indeed, millions if your search is less specific. With Google maps you can see practically every location on earth within a few seconds. Click some more and get NASA photos from space. There’s Flickr, Facebook, Fotki, Freeimagehosting… and those are just a few that start with the letter “F”.  YouTube streams billions of videos (yes BILLIONS with a “B”) every week.

All of this instantly available content from every source imaginable means that we now have a growing reference for every image that is created. It is easy to reveal a fake image and this is happening more and more frequently. On my commercial blog: http://amped3d.wordpress.com I even show a link to a website dedicated to showing the difference between a “real” cheesburger from Burger King vs. the imagery Burger King uses in their promotional materials. And the poor guy running the website is asking for donations because of all the bandwidth he is needing to handle all of the hits.

So, how does this demand for authenticity grow and gain traction?

Through better and better cameras and imaging technology. It makes for a compelling argument for the adoption of multi perspective imagery and imagery with much higher levels of resolution and detail. For years, I’ve been fussing about with camera systems and printing technology and lens development all for the purpose of creating imagery that reveals in an authentic manner. For me, the holy grail is an image that presents exactly as you perceive what the image represents in real life. I don’t know if I will ever truly achieve it, but each day I get a bit closer.

The time has come for me to step up my camera rig to the next level. Fourteen 21 megapixel cameras just don’t cut it anymore. I am in the process of building my next camera prototype utilizing an array of 60 to 80 megapixel sensors. It is ridiculously expensive, but now that I am able to begin leveraging my knowledgebase with consulting and other endeavors, it makes this transition possible.

I’ll be documenting the details here on my blog as things progress.

Is “3D Eyestrain” A Misnomer?

As more “bad” 3D films enter the marketplace there are increasing articles being published about the bad health effects of 3D. Generally, somewhere in the copy of an article there is a reference to “3D eyestrain”.  I’m not a doctor, but I’m not sure “eyestrain” really defines what is happening.

As a layman, “eyestrain” conjures up things like muscle strain, over exertion or some kind of stress to the mechanical operation of the eyes. Some sort of movement or use that is atypical and causes harm. It seems difficult to accept that changing the point of focus as compared to convergence really creates some sort of strain or stress for the eyes. I am of the opinion that the problem likely has more to do with an expectation of the brain being met with something out of the “norm”. A perception conflict that the brain responds to with an alarm manifested with some type of physical discomfort.

What makes me have this opinion is noting that perception conflicts having to do with the inner ear present in some people with physical discomfort including headache and nausea. When an astronaut is weightless in space it is difficult to think some sort of physical stress is happening. Certainly over exertion is not at play, but headache and nausea do occur and I think it seems realistic that those physical manifestations of discomfort are brain induced and not muscle induced.

To me, the focus on the mechanics of the eye seems misplaced. In my humble opinion, more could be gained by studying what is going on in the brain during periods of perception conflict. Has this kind of study been undertaken using fMRI or EEG measurement? If not, why not?  What is the source of increased or decreased sensitivity to perception conflicts? Is it uniform or specific to certain types of perception conflicts? Does it imply some difference between people’s brain plasticity or ability to “wire around” problem areas?

When I read about extreme cases of brain “alternate connections” like those that manifest with synesthesia, I really wonder what is going on. Indeed, it is interesting to note that synesthetes generally associate their brain’s cross-wired perceptions with pleasurable feelings. This implies that if the brain is responsible for altered perception then it is positive and if external forces create altered perception it is negative. Does that always have to be the case?

Perhaps it is the difference between additive and subtractive in that synesthetes have added perception information and external perception conflicts require suppression or the ability to subtract the perception conflict from the brain’s processing.  Maybe it is the brain telling us through physical discomfort that it is being asked to delete what is normally an additive component to perception.

Some books suggest that the brain can be rewired on the fly to adapt to changing environmental conditions (astronauts in space for example). What makes that rewiring adaptable vs. permanent (as appears to be the case with synesthetes?). And how does the brain determine what is beneficial and what is harmful?  Clearly, there seems to be high levels of emotional response as it relates to perception issues. People who don’t like 3D are unusually vocal about it in ways that don’t seem to be commensurate with the issue. Some are on a mission to fight against “the terribleness of 3D”. Am I the only one that finds this extraordinary?

A google search of “3D”+”harmful” yields over 23 million results. Glasses are now available on the market that convert 3D to 2D and are selling! Over the months of writing this blog my opinion has changed somewhat to be more curious about what is going on in the brain as it relates to these continuing 3D health concerns and emotional ties to one opinion or another as to whether 3D is good or bad.

Clearly, this controversy is not going away so for that reason alone it deserves attention and study.

Cool New AMPED 3D Poster I Just Finished

This is a 24″ x 36″ backlit poster sample that I just finished for Hearst Media Group.

When Things Looked Bigger…

Have you ever gone to a place from your childhood, not having visited it since childhood, and everything looked so much smaller than you remember? Well, the truth is that is WAS smaller back when you were a child. Huh?

Let me explain…

When you were a child, your head was still growing and your eyes were closer together than they are now. This miniturization (you were smaller) is also translated to what you see and your perception of the world. Think about it, the smaller your head the more your perceive in the smaller world. A doll, if living, would perceive the doll house in a similar manner to how we perceive a full size house because the doll’s eyes would be much closer together (and smaller).

This got me to thinking. Could memories from childhood be invoked through the use of imagery of familiar objects that were shown in 3D at a larger size? That size being similar to what closer spaced eyes would percieve.

The verdict is still out but the initial testing is showing promise. This has pretty cool ramifications with regard to bringing repressed memories to the surface in much the same way a smell can.  To percieve something visually as it would have appeared in your childhood just might bring a memory to the surface that you hadn’t experienced since you were a child.

Once I find a neuromarketing partner, we will begin taking a peek inside the brain to see if there is any merit to my theory.

News from MIT: What makes an image memorable?

A new study from MIT neuroscientists reinforces my own findings, that images of people and familiar human size objects are among the most memorable. Indeed, I take it a step further by making my photography true-to-life size and believe this is an important element to making an image emotionally engaging.

The kind of research done at MIT is very helpful in my quest to provide the most effective signage for retail and general public communication applications. I write more about this on my blog: http://amped3D.wordpress.com

I believe that there is a lot of consistency among people with regards to what kind of image is memorable and engaging. It is exciting to see research from MIT that supports my opinion and conclusions. The next step in research is to scientifically show the added impact depicting an image with spatial information (AMPED 3D) as seen in real life. Here again, I am hoping that science will prove out my opinion and anecdotal observtations of people looking at my photography. The existing scientific data points to that being true, but so far no study specific to my photography has been done… yet.

There is an article about the recent MIT study here:

 http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/memorable-images-0524.html

I have found that art + science + commonsense = amazing!

Imagery comes in through our eyes, but what we see depends upon our brain.

With 1/4 of our brain involved in processing visual information, you’d think that we see and perceive the world pretty accurately. As it turns out, there is too much information for our brain to process everything – so it just skips over things that aren’t deemed important. If something looks familiar – like a generic car – and we have no reason to look at it in detail, then we can be easily fooled into thinking we see something that we aren’t. My theory is that when we aren’t consciously looking at something, we see it in a more referential way. Our logical left brain knows that cars are on the street and it knows what cars look like, therefore, if the visual processing of the brain isn’t fully engaged (it isn’t that important to really look at) then we can be easily fooled into thinking we see something that we really aren’t seeing.

In the example below, the people don’t even notice that the car has no depth and is a flat photographic life size print. I believe the reason that they don’t notice is because they never really look at the car other than in a referential way. There is no reason to perceive the space that the car occupies and given the distractions, clearly these people’s brains simply don’t process all of the visual information that they have available to them. The perception conflict of seeing a flat image of a car doesn’t make sense in the context of what they are seeing, so their brain just dismissed it and accepted the image of the car as a real car.

 Here is the link: http://www.wimp.com/disappearingprank/

Think about the context. The man asks the people to watch his car. They glance over and see what looks more or less like a car but don’t actually get to “see” the car because their focus is really on the man talking. I submit that if the man said “look at that life size poster cutout of a car over there”, that they would not have ever seen what they believed to be a car. It all has to do with context and how the brain processes the information given to it and what the perception expectation is.

In many ways, the above is a broader explanation of what is happening with regards to imagery in general. There is so much, we simply don’t look at things – we just get a sense of them. We have so many distractions that we don’t visually engage in looking at things in detail. This sensory overload and the abundance of imagery via camera phones and the internet, make it less valued.

Try Converting A 2D Version Of This To 3D Or Interpolating Views…

This is a stereo cross view animation. For instructions on how to see it refer to:  http://2eyephotography.com/

In this example, note the extreme amount of spatial information that simply can’t be extracted from a 2D original. In the original 21 megapixel source images you can also see spider web glisten with binocular rivalry (it is partially evident in a few frames if you look very closely. I’ll have a lot more to say about this multi perspective shot in future blog posts. Suffice it to say that it is the kind of image that inspired me to build an insane multi-camera array. It was taken outdoors, with the wind blowing!

This shot also has illusion components. Can you figure out what they are?

Illusions Provide A Glimpse At Brain Vision Processing

Check out these illusions:

http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/cat/top-10-finalists/2011/

These illusions are but another example of the truth that it is the brain that sees, not the eyes. This is a very important concept to keep top of mind when creating 3D imagery. By presenting a different perspective to each eye, the brain takes that input and converts it to an image with depth. In the case of 3D imagery – the imagery provides an illusion that the brain processes and interprets as a real depiction of space. In truth, the space does not exist – it is an illusion.

As with all illusions, there is a point where the illusion breaks down. Since it is an illusion and NOT real, by definition there will be limitations to what can be presented in 3D. Few understand that the brain will never fully accept an illusion without some level of perception conflict. It might be suppressed and deep within the subconscious, but there will always be a slight difference between what we see in real life and what is presented in the form of an illusion. But as the above examples demonstrate, there are aspects to illusion that present as very real because the brain is highly biased to process information in certain ways. Taking advantage of this bias makes it possible to create incredibly compelling 3D imagery. Ignoring it and what you end up with is far less effective.

So, thinking about 3D as an illusion, instead of mimicking the mechanics of presenting information to the eyes in a familiar way, opens up many more possibilities for compelling multi perspective imagery. Many times, what you think you are seeing is far more powerful than what you actually are seeing.

An additional follow up tidbit: By engaging the brain with a visual puzzle, you latch into engagement and fixation and open up the possibilities to communicate a great deal of information within a multi perspective image. In this way, 3D is a tool that makes new types of artistic expression possible.

AMPED 3D vs. Lenticular?

Somebody did a google search asking the above question, so I thought I’d provide some clarity. AMPED 3D is a trademark for a process that I use to produce autostereoscopic imagery. I use lenticular lens material, but I have written my own interlacing software and modified how my printer puts the dots on the substrait (paper) that I laminate to the lenticular lens. Additionally, I had my own lenticular material cast to my specifications and I bond the lenticular lens material to a plastic backer to obtain optimal focus distance from the lens to the ink dots on the paper.

Additionally, I have extensively modified my cameras (voiding the warranty) so that they work in sync and provide extra luminance dynamic range (at the expense of error correction, which I perform with a computer separately from the camera).  While not true “HDR” I can pull about 2.25 extra F stops of dynamic range from the data.

I try to avoid pixel warping or perspective interpolation as I have found this technique to be lacking. That is why I use 14 cameras on a custom designed rail slider so that I can take up to 42 images in less than 1/2 second or 14 images within about 1/250th of a second.

I am all about being fussy and precise and still feel that the level of quality that I am able to achieve is lacking in terms of resolution. It is very likely that I won’t be satisfied until plenoptic cameras become available whereby I can extract over 100 perspectives at 1,000th of a second sync precision. This would likely require an array of 5 plenoptic cameras at today’s available technology. However, today’s plenoptic camera technology does not have enough resolution for imagery much larger than 20″ x 18″ so I can’t get very excited about it yet.

To be clear, while I am not satisfied with the imagery I have been able to create – it is far better than any other example that I have seen.

The other point I would like to make is that beyond the tech, I am fully focused on learning about the brain and how the brain processes vision. So far, many secrets have been revealed to me that I find surprising and enlightening. This insight is extremely helpful in determining what will make a compelling and emotionally engaging multi perspective image. Again, I have yet to see examples beyond my own that take advantage of what neuroscience tells us about the brain’s image processing.

So, what are those insights? What are the secrets? To be honest, I am still learning about them and do not feel that I have an abundance of answers that would make it possible for me to speak with the kind of authority that I would be comfortable with. That is requiring research, which I am doing along with others. Preliminary findings are very exciting! For example, I have proven to myself that I can craft and image which can influence the behavior of a certain demographic in much the same way a trusted friend can be an influence. Another insight is that people’s sensitivity to faked or photoshopped imagery is growing exponentially and a backlash is already in the works. The gimmicks of the past are quickly losing their effectiveness and turning towards being huge negatives.

For more information on retail signage, check out my other blog at:

http://amped3d.wordpress.com

The Growing 3D Backlash / 10 Problems…

Anyone who doesn’t appreciate the negative sentiment regarding 3D has their head in the sand. The main issues regarding negativism in no particular order are:

1.) Some people can’t see 3D at all. They have lazy eye or strabismus or some other vision problem. Maybe as much as 15% of the population have difficulty with 3D or can’t see it at all.

2.) Some people have difficulty seeing 3D – especially BAD 3D that forces the viewer to cross or align their eyes in an atypical manner. They leave the theater with a headache or eyestrain. (This percentage of the population is likely higher than 15%)

3.) The “3D” aspect to the movie is purely gratuitous with poke you in the eye visuals that have nothing to do with anything. The addition of 3D does not make the movie “better”.

4.) Wearing glasses, especially wearing glasses OVER glasses is a drag. Plus, it is a good possibility that the glasses are damaged or scuffed or dirty and in many cases very uncomfortable to wear.

6.) Poorly calibrated projectors and an overly dark image, in many cases, diminish the experience.

7.) FAKE 3D! There is simply no technology that makes it possible to create “perfect” 2D to 3D conversion. The overwhelming majority of conversions are just plain bad. Ask yourself this: if part of the image is obscured by something in front of it, how can you magically make it appear? You can’t. You have to fake it and create an approximation of what you think it probably looked like. Outside of some major production like Star Wars with huge budgets for conversion, do you really think the money will be spent to do a first rate conversion job?

8.) 3DTV. There are so many problems. TV size and glasses and available content and different standards with varying quality and now the “promise” of no-glasses 3DTV “coming soon” just to confuse people about what might be available and that there might be some simple upgrade to their existing set.

9.) Speaking of 3DTV… the hype over sports is a FAIL. Content producers are ignoring consumer complaints about the players looking like “dolls” or “chess pieces”. The 3D is typically unnatural with depictions that subliminally suggest the viewer has a giant head.

10.) Poor content. 3D should be an equal production component to the whole program. How much depth and how it is depicted is hugely important. Stability between left and right views is hugely important. Evaluation through eyetracking the length of time a scene should remain on screen is hugely important. Imagery breaking frame out of context and jump cuts to different perspective and depth relationships are all bad ideas. Producers should ask themselves: “why should this scene be in 3D?” and then go about the details based upon the answer to that question.

Enough with the “Avatar this” and “Avatar that”. What worked for Avatar doesn’t guarantee that the 3D moniker has any value. There is something special that happens when people see with stereopsis and fuse two perspectives into a single perspective with depth. Things take on a realness quality that needs to make sense in the context of 3D imagery. Stereopsis takes up a huge portion of the brain’s processing and most oversimplify the complexity to an enormous degree.  The fact that the brain can take a crude approximation of two perspectives and interpret it to something that can be perceived with depth is a quantum demonstration of the brain’s plasticity to make sense out of imperfect visual input.

I am spending a great deal of time looking under the hood to understand what the brain is doing when it processes multi perspective input. Without this understanding and appreciation of the problems, there is a distinct possibility that the push back against 3D could grow and severely limit its success. This would be very unfortunately because 3D has astonishing potential to visually engage and inspire and change people’s lives in terms of expanding the human experience of what can be perceived.

Just Completed Life Size AMPED 3D Fireman Poster

Stereoscopic crossview animation of my latest AMPED 3D poster.

Stopping Time With AMPED 3D Photography.

Before I get started, I’d like to mention that I have acquired the web URL:
3Dphotographer.com which I hope will help with web traffic and people finding me!

So, what’s this about “stopping time”? Well, I have discovered many preconceived ideas about 3D photography that, unfortuantely, are wrong and are impeeding my ability to make as much progress as I’d like.  It seems that many people think about 3D photography in the same way they think about wax museums. They think that a 3D photograph must be some sort of construct that isn’t real and has some “creepy” element to it. Sadly, in most cases with regards to lenticular imagery that is true.

BUT

My AMPED 3D camera array is designed to capture a moment in time and hold it for enjoyment and experience in the future. My photographs aren’t death masks or frozen unnatural scenes. They are slices of life at moments where the imagery can unfold as a story that speaks to that moment in time like no other imagery can. For this reason I have invested in over a dozen cameras and adapted them to work in unison so as to trigger simultaneous shutter events and make it possible for me to extract the perfect moment with over a dozen differen perspectives. And there lies the big difference between what I do and what other 3D photographers do. For me, the multi perspective component is secondary to the story of the image. Being 3D simply makes it possible to transition a photograph from a referential experience to an experience of realism and deeper understanding.

Now here is where some people will think in their heads “blah, blah, blah… Almont is full of food waste…” but they’d be wrong. It is possible for the above to happen. Will it happen? I believe it ultimately will, but the road ahead is extremely difficult and so much is being done wrong, in my humble opinion, that it might be another ten years before the true potential of multi perspecitve imagery reaches a uniform level of acceptance and desirability. It will likely take new technology like plenoptic cameras and better/less expensive display technology. 

While I could have picked an easier line of work – I’d be hardpressed to find something that is equally rewarding.