3D and AR imaging technology tools for cultural creatives.
This year Disney/Pixar and Intel/DreamWorks’ Super Bowl 3D spots for Monsters vs. Aliens and Up (and PepsiCo’s SoBe Lifewater) received considerable media buzz and ushered in the third wave of 3D (following trends in the 1950s and 80s). This time around, 3D visual FX are less gimmicky and more spectacular than ever, courtesy of digitalization.
Currently several A-list auteurs and major studios have 3D pictures in production, including Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson (Tintin trilogy), Pixar (Toy Stories 1 & 2), and James Cameron (Avatar). Unlike in earlier eras, theatregoers don’t have to wear 3D glasses, as advances in digital projection methods automatically separate the left and right images on a single projector.
The idea behind developing 3D pictures is twofold, part economic imperative and part artistic innovation. New projection technologies might work to reverse downward trends in theatre box office. For filmmakers, 3D imagery moves spectatorship one step closer to an immersive experience, breaking down the 4th wall separating audience from screen.
Outside Hollywood, graphic artists working inside and outside the lines of advertising are picking up high-tech tools of augmented reality to create multi-dimensioned informational and image layers, accenting and supplementing everyday objects, surfaces and spaces with an extra layer of infodensity.
BMW’s mixed-media AR advert for the new Z4 combines live action film with 3D computer graphics–which gives the effect that a stunt driver is using the sportscar as a paintbrush as it drifts and donuts across a white mega-canvas, leaving a neo-futurist masterpiece of colorful swirls and arcs behind. Another noteworthy AR automaker campaign was recently run at MINI (watch the “making of” video here).
From a different perspective on AR development, over at SnapTell, image recognition technology is used to driver eyeballs, by matching photos snapped with camera phones to advertisers’ websites. A 2D image from print or outdoor advertising can be converted to a personalized mobile marketing moment, if the viewer is armed with a smartphone. A collection of magazines from Martha Stewart Weddings, GQ, Wired, Men’s Health, Us Weekly, and Rolling Stone have used SnapTell technology campaigns, enabling readers to take a picture of select ads within the issues, and then be directed to contests, additional product information, exclusive downloads, store locations, and special offers online. This extra layer of advertising on-demand effectively links the offline magazine media to the world of online and mobile advertising (for more on the OFF=ON trends, visit trendwatching.com). (Thanks for letting me know about SnapTell Randy Matheson, Interactive Developer, Graphic Designer, Social Media Promoter and New Media Know-it-all at Delvinia in Toronto—and the guy to follow on Twitter).
On the hardware side of life, and in response to the commercial applications of AR, inventor and artist Julian Oliver’s handheld augmented reality projector, dubbed “The Artvertiser,” is designed for urban, “on-site substitution of advertising content for the purposes of exhibiting art.” Point the projector at an ad and presto: “the Artvertiser software is trained to recognize individual advertisements, each of which become a virtual ‘canvas’ on which an artist can exhibit images or video when viewed through the hand-held device. After training, where ever the advertisement appears, the chosen art will appear instead when viewed live through the hand-held device,” (from Oliver’s blog). The Artvertiser project inspired Undercurrent blogger Mike Arauz to comment on its potential to “kill display advertising as we know it.”
Or not. Image recognition software and handheld barcode scanning apps enable instant price matching and are the future of retail, according to many including the Advertising Lab blog. This month Nokia released an image recognition app for its cellphones called Point and Find, which also enables barcode scanning, and is LBA-ready, such that consumers can “pick up an item in a shop, read its code and perform tasks like compare its pricing with other stores, and then command your phone’s GPS to navigate you there,” says Kit Eaton over at the FastCompany blog. Unlike apps that enable price comparisons and redirect shoppers to competitors (such as the bove mentioned Point and Find, and Pongr) the developers behind StoreeXperience mobile barcode reader let retailers make the salesfloor more sticky by providing information about products on the shelf of the store shoppers are standing in at the time.
