P3D Re: stereo/pufrich/multicam

[Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 1:37 PM -0600 on 5/16/98, Allen Forkum wrote:


|
|For those unfamiliar with his work, Eadweard Muybridge basically invented this
|technique in the late 1800s.  He's more famous for his motion studies, but he
|also made "freeze motion" studies.  He only used a few cameras (five or so),
|so the "movies" I've seen aren't that long, and the exposure aren't that
|great.  But they are viewable as "frozen motion."  Voyager Company publishes a
|laserdisc that animates many of his motion studies.  Included among them are a
|few "frozen motion" studies (e.g., horses running and jumping, men walking,
|etc.).  For info on the disc:
|
|http://www.criterionco.com/voyagerlaser/catalogpage.cgi?muybridge
|
|--Allen Forkum

Yes - I've seen (short) sequences of the multi camera Muybridge photos.
Recalling from memory (which is dangerous!) I think they were used at 
first for primarily two purposes. The first was to settle a bet about
whether a galloping horse always had one foot on the ground for support
(turns out no - the horse is actually airborne for short periods - more
recently I saw a similar study on cheetahs - turns out that they are
airborne for a significant portion of their stride - something on the
order of 50% - which partially accounts for their speed). The other 
thing the Muybridge photos were used for was in a "slit disk" motion
viewer (what to you call those things? - The are a cylinder with images
on the inside, and it rotates, so you view thru slits from the outside).

However, I've never gotten the impression of depth from those that I'm
getting from the current technique. Maybe because the ones Ive seen
show motion in the subject against a stationary background (more or less)
whereas what is happening now is a stationalry object against a moving 
background... Quite a while ago, I bought a book with most (or all) of the
Muybridge sequences printed in it. If I ever get some time, I might try
sticking together a few of those to see what happens. If I ever get a 
LD (or DVD if they will produce in that format) I'll have to get ahold
of that disk.

THANKS

              Bob Wier
     mailto:wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   2:47 PM Saturday, May 16, 1998
   Rocky Mountain College, Billings MT.
 keeper of the Photo-3d and Overland-Trails
mailing lists and the USA GPS Waypoint server




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