60 lens camera! plus 3d pics in SA magazine.

[P3D Gabriel Jacob <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As mentioned last time there was an inadvertant 3d pic in this months
Popular Science, well found more 3d pics when I was looking thru last
months (Nov96) Scientific American magazine. You can find the article
with pictures on page 46.
The article describes how Dayton Taylor put together in his kitchen
table a 60 lens camera sharing a common film. All camera shutters trigger
simulataneously and the lens separation is aprox 1.5 inches or 10 feet 
end to end! There are 4 pictures shown in the article from the 60 lens 
camera. They are true 3D pics but are illustrated from top to bottom in 
magazine. Thus to view them in 3D you'll either have to cut up the pics
to put them side by side or another technique is to use mirrors. If you
turn the magazine 360 degrees, so that the 4 pictures are facing you
upside down you can view the pics with 2 mirrors. Place the two mirrors
(side by side to each other) about 10 inches above the 4 pics at a 45
degree angle. Bring your eyes up close to the mirrors and fuse the 2
reflections of the pics together. You should be seeing the 2 images
clearly in 2D at this point. Rotate the left mirror slightly so that
the left row of pics rise up one frame. Now if you fuse the side by
side pics you should be seein them in 3D! You'll see 3 3D pairs.
Of course the images are reversed in the mirrors from the originals.
If one has a Viewmagic up-down viewer they might be able to use that.
Haven't tried it myself and the images might be too small for it.

The article also shows a pic of the 60 lens camera setup.
The curious thing I found about the article is that they mention
nothing about true stereo 3D but are describing only 3D manipulation in
2D, similiar to 2D rotatable computer grahics described as 3D. 
The application, they go on to say, on how you can see the "3D" image
(in actuality 2D) from different perspectives (in 2D). Now I hope they
realize that it would be a very simple matter to make this system where
you can view left to right in true stereoscopic 3D. The information the 
cameras take is already taken. So instead of having a viewer with the
film advancing or reversing one frame to view the different perspecitives
in 2D, one could reformat it so that there are two frames side by side
viewable with one pic advanced one frame from the right frame. This way
advancing the left and right frame together one would be able to view
and change perspectives in true 3D.

They also mention how the pictures viewed resemble a strange 3 dimensional
movie in which people resemble models encountered at Madame Tussaud's
Wax Museum. This was discussed last month, how people viewing 3D pics
find them eerie. Now imagine if the pictures they are talking about were
viewed also in true 3D as well as viewable from different perspectives.
My 2cents on the eerie feeling of seeing 3D frozen images is that this
is only a temporary feeling of not being used to a new media. So I would
say that,stating that this should be avoided is all wet. I don't have a 
problem viewing 3D planes in flight frozen still in mid-air in 3D. As was
mentioned in that discussion, it's because people are not used to such
realism but once they get used to it they will not mistaken it for real
life since they know they are looking in a viewer or whatever. So to say
that taking 3D pics of people should have some motion or whatever is
totally wrong. What has to be done is get people used to this media.

In any case if you don't have the Scientific American issue of Nov96, one
can read and see the pics of the camera and snapshots at SA web site. Here
is the link.
http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196techbus5.html
Also I have included an excerpt of the article below.  

>>Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle depicts a world in which a substance called
ice-nine causes water molecules to freeze solid. As a consequence, any
living organism that touches it turns into a statue of ice. When
Hollywood decides to make the movie version of the book, the
cinematographer might want to contact Dayton Taylor. The New York
City-based production manager for independent filmmakers has devised
a special-effects technique able to produce frozen images eerily similar
to the ones concocted from Vonnegut's imagination. 

For his system, Taylor cobbled together in his kitchen an array of 60
interconnected cameras (below). All the cameras share a common film
magazine: each one contains an unexposed frame of the same strip of
motion-picture film. To take a picture, the camera shutters all open
at the same time. The film registers 60 separate photographs of the same
image; only the viewing angle varies slightly (1.5 inches separates
the center point of each lens). The photographer then turns a hand
crank that winds the 10 feet of film until each camera is again fitted
with unexposed film. The 60 still shots can be shown in sequence as a
strange three-dimensional movie in which people resemble the models
encountered at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (photo sequence above).
One of Taylor's images reveals the right side of a youth jumping in
midair, then slowly moves to show his left side. A similar right-left
perspective highlights drops of champagne spurting from a bottle. 
What can you do with 10 feet of cameras? "I'm wracking my brain trying
to think about applications for this art form/technology," wrote
Steven Spielberg to an acquaintance after witnessing a videotape of
Taylor's invention. Taylor believes the main use will be for special
effects in films--and, in fact, a French production company used a similar
technique in crafting a music video for the Rolling Stones. Apple
Computer's QuickTime VR also allows a computer user to navigate through
photographic scenes in a similar three-dimensional way. 

Taylor's camera array, for which a patent is pending, is limited because
it records only an instant or two of activity before the film must be
wound forward. As the cost of digital photography and the size of cameras
diminish, this limitation may disappear. A camera array, perhaps containing
thousands of tiny units, could record a three-dimensional perspective of an
event as it progresses over time, thus providing a novel form of 
interactive video. Engineers could build camera arrays into the cylindrical
wall of a space shuttle, enabling students around the U.S. to move about
the interior of the spacecraft by manipulating a joystick. A television
viewer might choose to watch the finish of the 100-meter dash from in
front of or behind the runners during the Olympics in Sydney in the year
2000. The promise of such an interactive system may allow designers to drop
the adjective from "virtual reality."                         --Gary Stix<< 

Gabriel


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