This month, the San Francisco International Arts Festival is going to feature a stereoscopic film that doesn’t feature 3D glasses. The film, created by Walter Funk of Hologlyphics and titled “Spaceforms: Homage to Homer”, will allow viewers to walk around the viewing area; when the viewers’ position changes, so will the perspective of the scene being viewed. The experience will combine animation, live footage, action, and sound to create the ultimate experience. To quote the press release:
Audience members will be able to walk around the viewing area, watching Spaceforms from multiple angles. As their viewing position changes, so will the perspective of the scene they are watching. Nebulas, Saturn, and planetary motion sequences take on new life, floating in front of the audience. No longer flat, without the glasses.
Also, here’s a bit more insight into the background of the film:
The screening is produced by Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) in collaboration with affiliate partners including the Space Arts Development Fund of the National Space Society and The Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University. ZGAC is an international organization dedicated to fostering access for artists to space flight technology and zero gravity space through international partnerships with space agencies, space industry entrepreneurs, and leading universities.
“Spaceforms: Homage to Homer” is a stereoscopic sonic journey exploring animation, live footage, sound and motion in the space around the audience. Several 3D displays, each with differing visual properties, will be showing the movie.
…The movie is a Homage to Homer B. Tilton, scientist, mathematician, and 3D display pioneer. Tilton’s electronic 3D display work dates back to the late 1940s, a system that worked with 2D perspectives only. In the early 50s he developed a stereoscopic version, requiring user worn eye-wear. The real breakthrough came about in the late 60s, when Homer developed a method for viewing electronically generated stereoscopic moving images without glasses.Tilton’s 3D display could provide the viewer with a 3D image that was interactive in real-time. As the viewer moves side to side, infinite perspectives of the image are seen. This is in large contrast to the more recent 3D displays that have been commercialized in the past several years. The commercial displays usually have an average of 8 views, definitely nowhere near infinite. With infinite views, the visual quality is much closer to a white light hologram.
The film premiere will begin at 2:00 p.m. on May 29 at the Forth Mason’s South Side Theater.
