The World in 3D: "Pixel" by "Pixel"

Note: if you stumbled across this page and find this work interesting,
I strongly urge you check out my recent works running on a similiar theme!!

The World in 3D: "Pixel" by "Pixel" - Exhibited at the ITP Fall 2002 Show and the Europa Club Digital Art exhibition in Brooklyn, NY March 29th 2003.

Inspired by video tracking technology a software was created that attempts to recreate a live video image with 3 dimensional "pixels" that have three dimensions of space to work with. The result? A 3D mirror.

Hi there!

This software takes the video input and maps the corresponding colors onto 1200 3D "pixels." The brightness of the pixel also influences how much the pixel is displaced off of the "mirror." Similiar techniques are used for real time terrain generation in 3d engines.

The camera smoothly moves from angle to angle so the user can experience the different perspectives possible in 3D. At different angles the image looks like very different 3D environments. Eventually this project will be used as a foundation for a music generator or a virtual reality based user interface.

Macromedia Director 8.5 was used to dynamically generate and position the individual (1200) pixels. Earlier experimentation found that modeling and importing the geometry from 3D Studio Max resulted in poorer performance and greater complexity in coding. The video input is handled by Danny Rozin's "Track 'Em Colors" Xtra. Both USB Webcams and firewire DV cams have been tested with this project.

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