{"id":2079,"date":"2010-12-10T12:42:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T17:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2079"},"modified":"2010-12-10T19:14:27","modified_gmt":"2010-12-11T00:14:27","slug":"one-eyed-vs-cross-eyed-fractal-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2079","title":{"rendered":"One-eyed, vs Cross-eyed, Fractal Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
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He's angry because he can't cross his eyes like we can and he feels left out<\/p><\/div>\n

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3D-art freaks (circa 1860) groovin' to the third dimension. Detail from a painting by Jacob Spoel (1820-1868)<\/p><\/div>\n

How old is 3D imagery?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering, and you’re also stupid, 3D imagery has been around as long as humans have had two eyes.\u00a0 It’s pretty common actually and goes under the generic title: see<\/em>-ing.<\/p>\n

In fact, if you think about it, the usual flat, 2D kind of imagery seen in most artwork, like the two above, is actually something of an abstraction and employs all sorts of technical tricks to give the impression of natural depth in an unnaturally flat medium; 3D imagery is natural<\/em> imagery.<\/p>\n

Natural?\u00a0 Yes, that’s what I’d say is the impression I get when I look at 3D stereograms and other 3D imagery: I feel like a doorway to a little world has opened up on my computer screen.\u00a0 3D is more than just a cool trick, it’s virtual sculpture and a visual<\/em> reality –it’s as real as real can look<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I mention this because you may have noticed that people who make this sort of artwork often become obsessed with it.\u00a0 I think it’s that “little world” effect that fascinates them.\u00a0 Even apparently mediocre images still contain that exciting substance that transforms anything flat into an eternally effervescing wonder.<\/p>\n

My first encounter with artificial<\/em> 3D imagery was the View-Master<\/a>.\u00a0 Peering into it’s tiny worlds, no matter how dumb or childish the subject matter, was intoxicating.\u00a0 I remember that not everyone was like that when it came to the View-Master and so I suspect not everyone experiences the same thrill intensity when it comes to 3D stereo fractal art.<\/p>\n

Rathinagiri Rules!<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s a number of people making 3D stereo fractal images but the most prolific one I know of goes by the name Rathinagiri on Fractalforums.com.\u00a0 According to his Flickr page<\/a>, his full name is Subbiah Rathinagiri and he lives in southern India.\u00a0 I first came across his work on Fractalforums.com (FFs) the place where true enthusiasts gather these days.<\/p>\n

~Click on images to view full-size on original site~<\/em><\/p>\n

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fractal20100701 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

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fractal20101020 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

FractalWorks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Duncan Champney, author of the free Mac fractal program, FractalWorks<\/a>, gives these instructions for viewing “cross-eyed” 3D images on a site<\/a> displaying several examples:<\/p>\n

To view it, sit at a comfortable distance from your monitor and look at the dividing line between the images. Then hold your finger about halfway between your eyes and the screen so it appears just at the bottom of the image. Then look at your finger and slowly move it closer to your nose. This will cause you to cross your eyes. As your finger gets closer to your eyes, the left and right images will cross over and at some point you should see a stereoscopic view in your field of vision between the two images on the screen. It takes a little practice. Once you are able to see the stereo image, you should be able to hold your eyes in position and remove your finger.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s an excellent image by Duncan using his own program, FractalWorks:<\/p>\n

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Mandelscape cross-eyed stereogram by Duncan Champney<\/p><\/div>\n

Note how natural the 3D effect is:\u00a0 once you’ve got the image focused properly, cross-eyed, you can look all around in the image and the 3D effect never falters or is diminished.\u00a0 Duncan says he prefers to make the red\/cyan”anaglyph” type images as the cross-eyed ones tend to give him a headache.\u00a0 But you need the special red\/cyan 3D movie glasses to view those.\u00a0 FractalWorks makes both and as you can see, it does it well.<\/p>\n

If, however, you do have a set of red\/cyan glasses, here’s a great one by Don Whitaker:<\/p>\n

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4657682138_d4c1a8a605 by Don Whitaker<\/p><\/div>\n

In case you can’t view it properly, it looks like glowing mandelbulb planet floating in sinister light in hole on your computer screen in a vintage 50s sci-fi style (where everything was glowing and sinister).\u00a0 You know, if you’re really serious about fractal art these days you should have a set of 3D glasses beside your computer at all times.\u00a0 Amazon.com sells them<\/a> for a couple bucks.\u00a0 “Tools of the trade” as they say in bankruptcy court.<\/p>\n

How is it made?\u00a0 Aircraft cameras create “stereo-pairs” by taking a picture of the ground below them with a single camera.\u00a0 They then take a second picture just a few hundred feet afterwards.\u00a0 The two images taken with a single camera from slightly different positions imitates the offsetting of your two eyes and the two aircraft positions become the left and right eyes you see with (Godzilla-vision).\u00a0 The use of stereo glasses just makes it easier for each of your eyes to look exclusively at the single photo directly in front of them instead of doing the natural thing your eyes do, which is to intersect on a single point ahead of them and just look at one photo together.\u00a0 Cross-eyed images are the same thing, just with a different name.\u00a0 (Stereoscopy<\/a> on the Wikipedia.)<\/p>\n

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Designed for a Stereoscope but works as a Cross-eye image: Boston Common (date uncertain) by John P. Soule (1827-1904)<\/p><\/div>\n

More of Rathinagiri’s work<\/strong><\/p>\n

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fractal20101023 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

He’s got so many of these stereo images, and not just fractal ones, either, that I’m just showing a few that cover the range of imagery he has.\u00a0 This one is a great example of a soft metallic texture.\u00a0 It’s so much more impressive as a stereo image than a “one-eyed” one.\u00a0 It looks as if the program (Jesse Dierk’s Mandelbulb 3D<\/a>, I think) has actually made something real\u00a0 and tangible.<\/p>\n

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fractal20101019 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

Carved plaster or stone is what I see in this one.\u00a0 If there was a fractal temple, this is how it would look.\u00a0 Watch out that you don’t poke your eye on the needle-like thing in the middle.<\/p>\n

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fractal20101017 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

I like this one even as just a 2D image; the color, symmetry and design elements.\u00a0 But of course, as a stereo image we can do more than just look at it, we can go there.\u00a0 I find the mandelbox takes on a whole new dimension, no pun intended, when viewed in stereo vision.\u00a0 Things that simply merged into the background are now floating and quite distinct.\u00a0 I think we perceive the image differently when it’s a stereo pair.\u00a0 Perhaps the effect is somewhat distracting and we want to go, “Wow!” at everything.\u00a0 It’s certainly a whole new way of looking at fractal art, or any kind of art.\u00a0 The stereo pair of Boston Common, above, has a life to it that it’s “one-eyed” version alone doesn’t have, although obviously good photography doesn’t have to be 3D.<\/p>\n

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fractal20100923 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

Every wonder what it would look like to go visit these “egg” covered mandelbox places?\u00a0 Now you can.\u00a0 Leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back.<\/p>\n

One last one…<\/p>\n

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fractal20100919 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

This one’s another cool image even in just 2D.\u00a0 In it is displayed the great range of imagery produced by the mandelbox.\u00a0 This really reminds me of the old ViewMaster panoramas where you could come back again and again to walk your eyes around in a little world.\u00a0 3D stereo imagery can be a powerful medium when the subject matter is as interesting as it is here.<\/p>\n

More (much more) of Rathinagiri’s 3D stereo work can be seen here on his Flickr page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just one<\/em> more:<\/p>\n

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fractal20101015 by Subbiah Rathinagiri<\/p><\/div>\n

And a video!\u00a0 A cross-eyed video.\u00a0 You can do it.\u00a0 Get cross-eyed first and then hit play.\u00a0 [update:<\/strong> you might have to alter the “3D” settings that YouTube displays with to get “side by side” instead of “colored glasses” and a few other things…]<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/div>\n

Illusion is the final frontier and nothing does it better than 3D stereo imagery.\u00a0 My head is a spaceship and I go places.\u00a0 At least that’s how it feels when viewing 3D stereo fractal art.\u00a0 Sometimes it feels that way just walking around with two eyes.<\/p>\n

3D stereo fractals are a natural extension of the new 3D fractal software.\u00a0 I’ve just presented here some of the best examples that I’ve been able to find by Subbiah Rathinagiri, Duncan Champney and Don Whitaker.\u00a0 I’m sure this is just the beginning, because as Rathinagiri’s work has showed, the results magnify and multiply the effect of the mandelbox imagery by allowing us to perceive it, literally, in a deeper and more profound way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How old is 3D imagery? In case you’re wondering, and you’re also stupid, 3D imagery has been around as long as humans have had two eyes.\u00a0 It’s pretty common actually and goes under the generic title: see-ing. In fact, if you think about it, the usual flat, 2D kind of imagery seen in most artwork, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/stereo.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5625,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5625","url_meta":{"origin":2079,"position":0},"title":"Place: Where Art and Fractals Overlap","author":"Tim","date":"23 June, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"As I concluded in my previous posting, there are only two art genres which fractals are capable of contributing to: Abstract Expressionism and Landscape\/Place. Everything else created with the fractal medium is what I would call snapshots: interesting, even fascinating imagery but lacking in expressiveness or the portrayal of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2476,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2476","url_meta":{"origin":2079,"position":1},"title":"The Art of the Strange Place","author":"Tim","date":"7 February, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Although it's probably been a perennial theme in fractal art from the beginning, the recent 3D fractal explosion has greatly increased the number of images whose main impression is that of The Strange Place. Because of this, I think it's only appropriate to give some thought to this reinvigorated sub-genre\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2476#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Spiny-Newton-Julia-Disc-by-Erisian.jpeg?fit=500%2C375&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3498,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3498","url_meta":{"origin":2079,"position":2},"title":"Fractal Paintings of Tralfamadore","author":"Tim","date":"21 November, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The intersection of Brummbaer (he doesn't use a first name) and fractal art is something worth taking a second, and more careful look at. 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