3-D goes from movies to real world

Movie fans know that their action hero Superman does not really fly. And, in the movie Superman Returns, another visual trick is played on viewers. The man they see flying is not real. He is what is called a virtual actor. The first step in creating this digital actor is to have a real person stand in a room called a light stage. A computer then captures the outlines and shapes of his face and records how they throw off light. Paul Debevec is with the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California.

“We can light them with very specially computer-controlled illumination and take photos of them from seven different viewpoints with high resolution digital still cameras.”

Mr. Debevec is part of a team working to create computerized images of people, objects and environments that look and act real. The light stage permits actors to be turned into digital versions of themselves much like the blue creatures in the movie Avatar. The real world could soon be using a...

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Science fiction stories and movies have filled our imaginations with what the future may look like. Computer experts are working on 3-D technology that may make it possible to have 3-D teleconferencing in the next few years. Imagine that!