TEXTS ON 3D VIDEO ART AND TECHNIQUE

'3D video' refers to 'stereoscopic' motion-picture images seen on your TV or computer monitor in 'depth' (and with horizontal parallax), and occupying a three-dimensional 'volume'. 3D video is 'spatial motion-pictures' conveyed to you via DVD, VHS, satellite, cable, or web-cast. It is the future of motion-picture art.

In the 3D video space, some of the images are projected out 'in front' of the video screen and some are seen to recede 'behind' the screen - surface. It's no longer a 'screen' that you're looking at, but a 'volume' of 3D space. Non-interactive 3D video is 'passive Virtual Reality' (as in theater presentations) , whereas user-determined (as in games) 3D video is 'interactive Virtual Reality'.

Recording a 3D video image can be via a dual-CCD-lensed camera, dual (synced) cameras (3DVX, or any small camcorders configured for such applications), or any inventive method (and there have been many) whereby left and right eye views of a scene are recorded from two views. 3D models and animations achieved via computer graphics (CG) inherently contain a 2-camera stereo view (or any number of views, for that matter) in the options for output.

These 3D recordings are combined (edited) for stereoscopic 3D presentation-playback either in interlaced video or progressive scan displays, and either using glasses (typically LCS shutter, or polarized projection or anaglyph viewing) or autostereoscopic displays (glass-less viewing using specially made lenticular-type screens with select viewing zones and angles - as in X3D, Stereographics, Sharp laptop displays).

3D video was invented in the last century, alongside 'regular' television, but with motion-pictures (industry) dominating the viewer's habits, the radio corporations (who else could mass-build this stuff?) gave us 'Television' as a 2D (and in black and white, at first) experience. ''Make it like pictures of 'talking radio!', you could almost hear the engineers proclaim, 'Make it cheap!' the entertainment accountants might proclaim.

So, 'three dimensional television' had to wait...on the sidelines during the 50's '3D Motion-Picture craze' (now relived in revival fests hosted by hobby clubs)...until the 60's innovators came back with experimental interests on their minds, interests like portable three-dimensional videotape cameras that would join all the other portable 2D videocams that drove an entire industry of electronic video innovations.

And it's 'Sci-Fi come true' when we remember holography, a child of the 60's laser, 3D, light-show environments, and a most importantly the first fully accurate 3-Dimensional imaging system (projecting images into every-space and without glasses). Holography and its arts came upon the scene with evangelist artists proclaiming a 'holographic universe' to replace the Euclidean one. The theory of holography got its inventor (Dennis Gabor) a Nobel Prize, some 40 years after his invention.

And the beat went on, via the 90's virtual reality displays which came out of the lab as fully interactive 3D worlds experiences. Gamers demanded 'quad pipe stereoscopic versions' of their games and Asus cards flew off the shelves with 3D glasses. 3D is here to stay.

And so, from the lab, to the hobby club, to the theaters, back to the lab, to conferences, to home DVD platers, to virtual reality gamer lounges, the path has been certainly 'non-linear'. That it has taken a while to reach the 'market' is partly due to the many detours, rip-offs, false starts, which typify 'goldrush' industries.

Another reason why it has taken 'so long' is the mistaken belief (by some developers) that the (gee whiz) 'effect' of 'see it's in 3D!' will somehow be 'enough' for the market. Wrong. The novelty fades, content remains. And with all the new 3D 'tech' being developed, there still is a acute scarcity of content that could engage an audience in something more than thrill-seeking kitch horror topics presumably directed towards obsessed adolescents playing with their newest '3D FX' toy.

Holography suffered a similar fate. First the novelty, then....the post-goldrush 'blues'. To state that all innovations need content is to state the obvious, but somehow it has been 'missed' by many in the field. (Also see below for more on this subject.)

Motion-pictures presented on a flat auto-stereoscopic screen, 3D without glasses, is now a marketplace reality.

We see newly developed auto-stereoscopic viewing screens competing in the marketplace (see: www.ddd.com), and much of this competition features '2D to 3D CONVERSION software which allows the viewer to see any 2D DVD in the designated viewing systems ( auto-stereoscopic 3D screen displaying 3D without glasses ).

Why such a focus on '2D to 3D conversion'? Precisely because of the scarcity of original, engaging, stereoscopic 3D video content. We've posited this before: good tech without cultural (entertaining, informing, inspiring) content is a 'blank screen'. And without good tech, or when featuring sloppy stereo cinematography (the bane of hobbyists) it's a 'headache'. And if there's not enough available in 3D, then the content focus shifts to something 'temporary' but available (boxcars of DVDs).

2D to 3D is synthesized stereoscopic 3D that compels the viewer to be in selected 'sweet spots' (angle / distance to screen) for stereo separation to work. Present lenslet or lenticular gratings (placed over the LCD or plasma 2D screen) produce acceptable 3D results. While good algorithms exist in re-mapping 'depth' (z-buffer) from 2D, the '2D to 3D' effect for images originating in 2D is a limited '3D volume' effect that, while exciting in its possibilities, only approximates true stereoscopic 3D.

3D is here to stay and evolve, cyclopian cultural biases notwithstanding. But it will require content to grow with the public.

We perceive space using 'binocular' vision and we have culturally adapted to looking at 2D photographs 'as if they were 3D'. Some of us prefer three-dimensional photography, as recording or as art.

As in all stereoscopic-3D recordings/displays, the left-eye views and right-eye views are delivered to left and right eyes respectively with the three-dimensional image 'perceived' via mental synthesis by the viewer.

Stereoscopic 3D (in spite of some current autostereoscopic screen manufacturer hype) is not holographic 3D, the latter being a separate theory and technology producing full 3D images via diffracted/focused light 'in space'. (For holography, visit holographic art - archives on this site).

Stereoscopic 3D video (and computer graphics 3D) can produce content and form that is unique to photo-digital graphics. Unique subjects, forms, and imaginary landscapes. This is one of the reasons 3D is a legitimate art form.

Stereoscopic 3D renderings require that the two-eye views be separated (in recording by using two cameras or two lenses) and re-constituted by the viewer as a single image containing 'depth'.

In 'field sequential' 3D Video the discrete recording of two-eye views on videotape or DV (views are separated by alternating video 'fields') recorded on tape, and on playback using LCS (shutter) glasses perceived uniquely by the left and right eyes as image pairs which are re-constituted in the viewer's brain as a 'spatial representation' (a mental image).

There are many detailed technical descriptions (see www.3dmagic.com) of how this and other processes work, both in terms of perception and recording-playback technologies, but for the purposes of this general introduction these details and the many inventions are secondary.

In order to view a scene stereoscopically the 'left' and 'right' eye views must be separated by using glasses or separated employing special display screen (eg. the newest tech: autostereoscopic (i.e. viewed without glasses) methods that typically employ a 'invisible' lenticular element to act as a channel-selective grating in front of what appears to be a 'normal' CRT or flat-panel video display.

Entire hobbyist and inventor cultures have grown up around 'special ways to record and render stereoscopic 3D' and one is always welcome to research this field in its historical and technical entirety (and to argue its merits on P3D lists).

Our fascination with the perception of 'space' and depth and with viewing scenes in three dimensions is the driving force behind 'stereoscopy'. 2D photography, for example, has long imitated parallax views, and computer '3D modeling' rendered on a flat screen has successfully fooled the eye by use of rotation or movements. It is noteworthy that the origins of stereoscopic photography are at least as old as the camera and photography itself (the 1800's - when early photography featured both 2D and 3D viewing technologies). It is equally noteworthy that the future of 3D is as new as the next generation of digital imaging.

In 3D stereoscopic video we use two lenses (two CCDs) or two interlocked cameras to capture the 'stereo' two-eyed view of a scene by encoding the LEFT and RIGHT eye views on 'alternating video fields' - two fields (at 1/60th of a second each - two per 'frame' for NTSC) making up a 'stereo pair'. The origins of 3D video can be traced back to inventions occuring at the beginnings of the television era. (See the excellent archives of Michael Starks - www.3DMagic.com - for information on these subjects as well as Christoph Bungert's excellent STEREO 3D.COM site for specifics on many camera - projection - glasses technologies and products.)

Images recorded in the stereoscopic manner appear as 'double' and must be separated for each eye in viewing by means of either LCS (Liquid Crystal Shutter) glasses which 'flicker' (turning on and off for each eye) in sync with the left-eye / right-eye fields, or must display each left-right image separately (Virtual I/O) in the glasses. Images can also be separated by 'de-mux' (de-multiplex) by passing the tape or program output to a de-multiplexer producing two separate 'channels' of video output sent to two (cross-polarized) video projectors which direct their superimposed image output to a silver screen (which retains the polarization upon reflection to an audience wearing polarized glasses.)

Since TV phosphor screens are unable to be polarized (except by placing a switchable polarizing screen in front of the monitor), the use of shutter glasses (wired or wireless) are the typical mode of viewing 3D video tapes in a home environment. (Gamer 3D glasses for 3D computer games work on a similar principle.)

INTERPRETING STEREOSCOPIC 3D FORMATS

Since field-sequential 3D VIDEO images (from samples on this site) contain left and right-eye views on alternating (interlaced) video fields, anaglyph reproductions (contained in these pages) simulate this effect by converting left and right-eye views to red (left eye) - blue (right eye) tinted images. (This can be done using Dave Harvey's 'Stereo Image Factory' software or by a number of other methods (including Photoshop layers - filters).

NOTE: The anaglyph 3D images seen on this site are LOWER in resolution than the original 3D VIDEO INTERLACED FRAMES - they are only presented as 'similar' and not identical to the original images.

FRAME EXAMPLES:

An abundance of 3D viewing tech, a scarcity of content

To view field-sequential 3D videos (as listed on this site) you require some basic hardware (LCS glasses, polarized projection systems) and these are summarized on the 3D viewing page.

There is an recommended list of 3D hardware and software manufacturers representing both high-end (expensive) and low-end products and services on the web. Most vendors involved in stereoscopic 3D imaging are true 'enthusiasts' of the remarkable possibilities of this medium. However, the promise of technology needs a corresponding promise of 'content' to make it work beyond the confines of 3D clubs or 'the lab'.

The emergence of viewer interactive 3D, first seen in virtual reality displays, now visible in video games and multi-user networked simulations and games, is an important development of 'what is 3D video'.

Also, check out some anaglyph web samples to see a small sampling of the range of interests both personal, scientific, and commercial that are available on the web. (You will require red-blue anaglyph glasses to view the material in 3D.) In its present and future possibilities, stereoscopic 3D is one of the most interesting mediums for our times, and when combined with user interaction (animations, games, virtual reality displays) it points to a new and exciting form of expression that is a long ways from the 'old days' of the 'viewmaster travelogue'.

If you are interested in some extremely frank and fascinating accounts of 'behind the corporate scenes' histories of 3D TV and related technologies, and some subjectively scathing accounts of personalities and business practices, visit the collection of essays of one of the founders of modern-day stereoscopic 3D TV Michael Starks and his Technical Articles on Stereoscopic Displays.

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WHEN IS 3D VIDEO AN ART?

In this 'wildwest show' of Stereoscopic 3D sites, products, and intenet claims and counter-claims, we get all kinds of stuff, most of which is 'gee whiz it's 3D!' or:

SUPER SPECIAL DEAL! .......COOLEST STUFF ON THE PLANET!.....BEST 3D EXPERIENCE!

All new medias provoke a 'gold rush' mentality with some prospectors leading the 'Klondike' rush to early retirement in Vegas. Does 'art' figure in 'there's gold in them hills'? Only if you're in for something more than trends that are here today and gone tomorrow.

Popular culture is full of hyperbole and networked '3D bulletin boards', conventions, and all kinds of amateur and professional forums and 'memorabilia' offerings on E-Bay. We see remarkable creations in Large-Format motion pictures (IMAX 3D), interesting personal explorations on stereo 3D sites on the web, scientific (and medical) applications of 3D imaging, the newly emerging '3D computer gaming', and a number of creations that defy categories.

Most of the discussions about '3D quality' are about 'technique', separation, convergence, whether it is 'pseudo' (scopic), and provoke questions like 'how did you do it?'. Just try raising the topics of 'art' in the hobby world and what you get is a lot of 'barking' (by the Photo 3D list 'mentors') concerning what constitutes 'proper 3D etiquette' of expression. Hobbyists who don't really make a living with 3D art will nevertheless have a lot of 'opinions' about what 'art' is. 'The 1/30th rule is not an aesthetic' I once wrote to no avail.

(See also Alice in the Land of the E*Moti*Cons
for some selections of Photo 3D (P3D) list discussions on the topics of 'art', 'etiquette', and the hubris of pontificating amateur sages.)

A Matter of Intent

3D Video is a motion-picture version of 3D photography. Certainly, 'good stereo technique' is important, especially if the audience is to be spared misregistered, poorly shot subject matter, improper lens (eye) separation, or a number of defects that produce eyestrain or inability to fuse the left and right eye components into a single stereo image. But 'proper technique' never guaranteed aesthetic (or even entertaining) subject matter. If it did, a instructional dental assistant training 3D video featuring 'good stereoscopic technique' might suffice for those who can't (or don't care to) differentiate getween a technical and aesthetic interpretation and intent.

So I will simply put it forward: '3D Video Art' is a aesthetic exploration of the possibilities of stereoscopic 3D expression in motion-picture formats, without the enforced restrictions of what constitutes (a previously endorsed) 'proper' form, content, and style. In other words, it's ground-breaking, innovative, impolite, and challenging (to the viewer, critic) in terms of what '3D motion-pictures can be'.

A Matter of Freedom

As in most 'illegitimate' (by acceptable high-art museum curating standards) medias, joining the other 'illegimates' of photography, film, 3D interactive web art, music, poetry, dance, theater, 3D video art will begin in the 'post-modern' orphanage.

The 3D video artists will be found in performance, installation, inter-media galleries, exhibiting content to a mystified audience. As with holographic art in the 70's, the audience's first impression of the medium is also its first aesthetic encounter. Good and bad works will abound, tied to one another by a sense of adventure and freedom.

There are already numerous works, accessible by search engines of the web, that celebrate the many forms of this emerging medium.

The 'Aesthetic Labor' of Choice:

The 'subject of art' tends to divisive in social exchanges where backgrounds and interests vary. Some propose a generalist definition ('everyone's an artist, everything's art') so as to deny intent, aesthetics, technical quality achievement and to make the definition so all inclusive as to be useless. Certainly, most hobbyists consider themselves 'artists', and many commercial (advertising) artists proclaim themselves 'graphic artists', musicians are 'recording artists', and those who have made a buck in the marketplace are 'producers' of 'award-winning' stuff.

Sample Semiotic 'Taste Test':

Please identify which of these images most accurately depicts
'artistic historical illustration':

Both answers, of course, are related to who is looking and why.
History was made in both instances.

Leaving the lists:

Here in this discussion, the term 'art' refers to something that has been designated 'special' in terms of culture and meaning (and value) and has a purpose that starts at the very personal and idiosyncratic level and makes its effect on the 'culture of 3D' with results that are memorable, and 'infectious' to the imagination. (Naysayers need not apply, but they do).

A FEW THOUGHTS FROM 'DA OLD SCHOOL'

"To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks....This world of the imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense." -- Adolph Gottlieb and Marcus Rothko - (1943 New York Times).

The 'MATERIAL' of this practice - some call it 'art' -- is therefore not one of imitation and substitution but affirmation and vision?

"I adhere to the material reality of the world and the substance of things. I merely enlarge the extent of this reality, extending to it coequal attributes with experiences in our more familiar environment." -- Mark Rothko

Not interior decoration? Not technical display?

" Consequently...our work...must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration; pictures for the home; pictures for over the mantle; pictures of the American scene; social pictures; purity in art; prize-winning potboilers; the National Academy; the Whitney Academy; the Corn Belt Academy; buckeyes; trite tripe; etc. " -- Gottlieb and Rothko

Consequently...

The issues concerning whether 3D VIDEO can be an 'art' or whether it is to be maintained as a 'display medium' implicates the manner in which it was created and the purpose of the work. It implicates the social aspects of this work being either part of a 3D club activity, a corporate profit-seeking venture, or if it is being created in the pursuit of new and challenging ways to perceive and express reality, irrespective of market and immediate use-value.

In this last application, the experimental, the 'artistic' (by this definition), 3D VIDEO can become an art form when the created work interprets its subject matter in a unique and innovative way, when the boundaries of time-honored tradition are displaced in favor of conceptual and formal investigation, and when the mere fact that it is '3D' is subordinate to how the artistic imagination celebrates spatial perception.

In short, when the creation exceeds the novice interests in the 'novelty' or '3D effects' of the medium, e.g. 3D Club demos, gamer interests in 'sensation', consummers looking for 'something different' interests, it becomes something more than a 'new technique'. It becomes a process of 'making art'.

Stereoscopy and 3D have long been the domains of 'hobbyists' and collectors of all kinds of 'memorabilia'. These special interest groups have long maintained a passionate interest in stereoscopy, along with all of the 'rules' of what constitutes 'proper stereo technique'. In craft-type environments (such as 3D clubs), the issue of 'technique' typically overrides content; in corporate-type 'mass marketing' strategies (tapes offered for sale on the net), there is an underlying premise that the 'mass public' only wants 'technique' (thrills, flashy graphics) and that any deviation from this is unacceptable to the 'mass market'.

Fortunately, some of the proponents of this false mass-marketing theory have ceased to do business, precisely disproving their 'informed' theory that the public is a lot shallower than they.

The fascination with technique over content implies that this medium's goal is towards 'realism', an admittedly hopeless goal considering the limits of resolution and the pre-eminence of high-resolution motion-picture technologies like IMAX-3D.

Nowadays there are many stereoscopic 3D examples, in all formats, exhibited on the net, in various club meetings. The overwhelming bias - and we can term this a 'genre' is for generic (common) subject matter to be subject to 'interesting techniques' of interpretation - presentation. A problem which was similarly evident in the early days of holography (see article links below).

3D VIDEO is precisely related to other motion picture (film, video) mediums by history, by camera design, by editing practices, and further related to other spatial representation mediums such as holography. Within these relations, 3D VIDEO 'ART' must demonstrate its conceptual differences, relationships, departures from these mediums and by invoking its own creative strategies of editing, composition, presentation.

The primary task in realizing an art form from 3D Video is one of creating new possibilities in perceiving and understanding space...and time, and that means 'taking risks' with subjects and forms.

For some examples of how the 'subject or art' gets abused in the on-line list chats,
visit Alice in the Land of P3D E*Moti*Cons.

On a personal note:

The 3D Video Catalogue, and links to image galleries, represent an ongoing interest in 3D experimental and art video, not commercial or hardware-demo type subjects. These works are as varied in subject matter as in formal approach and stereoscopic interests. What began as a 'better way to document holographic images' - for that was the original intention - by Razutis, has emerged into a experimental art body of work unique in itself.

Also visit: STEREO 3D - APPLETS - 'Meditations'

2D / 3D DREAM CHAMBERS

Related Concepts found in HOLOGRAPHY and MEDIA:

When Merchandising Displaces Art:

New medias invite 'gold-rush' mentality with each prospecting individual/company proclaiming 'the best' 'most unique' 'the biggest' '3D' 'investment opportunity' 'creation' yet to be discovered. Great things happen, but some good inventions fall aside, some good guys don't always triumph, life is not a bed of roses, but 'that's life' in a world of emoticons.

In the Holographic Arts, conceived in the 60's after the invention of the visible laser, we've also seen a 'circus atmosphere' surrounding the marketing of this medium, complete with predictions of a 'holographic' movie future, and 'new age' hyperbole concerning 'vibration' and 'color'. For more on this subject, join our 'Alice' as she explores holographic display 'art' in the multi-part satire IS IT SCIENCE? IS IT ART? and also visits the Canadian and on-line 'ROYAL HOLOGRAPHIC ART GALLERY'.

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TEXTS ON STEREOSCOPIC 3D VIDEO

Archived November 10, 2006

* WHAT IS 3D VIDEO? * WHEN IS 3D VIDEO AN ART? * STEREOSCOPIC-3D FORMATS