"Liquid Shows" (simulated 3D viewing of 2D images)

June 25th, 2008

This looked pretty damn impressive when I saw it today. A set of wedding photographer David Beckstead's killer images had been transformed by a video company into a "3D Ken-Burns" effect. You know the panning effect which made Show-It Web so popular.

At first I was dumbfounded and said "damn, how is that done?".

I read a bit about the making of these shows and it seems they are painstakingly made by hand, one image at a time.

OK.

Looking a little closer, the following seems to be happening:

* the original image is separated into separate 2D layers, the fireground, some mid area, background, etc.

* an intelligent "Ken Burns" is then applied which pans the image but each layer is panned at a different speed simulating their distance from the viewpoint, thus creating the stunning 3D effect.

* Some goodies are put into a few of the images, like a real cloud movie instead of a static sky and dynamic flare effects for some of the backlighted images.

Now I just have to find the software which allows this and it should be possible to roll my own :-)

Any ideas?

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