This Is Awesome

I believe reality is now obsolete...

This is from The Sideshow, via YahooNews.

by Mike Krumboltz

Where to begin? This five-minute video is amazing, jaw-dropping, spectacular, etc. It is also sure to lead to some furrowed brows. It's as if an M.C. Escher work came to life.

Created by production house Bot & Dolly in association with the Creators Project, the video, titled "Box," shows off "projection mapping" technology by synchronizing it with an onscreen actor and behind-the-scenes robotics.

In the video, an actor works alongside two panels that seem to transform and teleport (as well as a bunch of other stuff that is completely bananas). The live performance was captured on camera. This isn't tech stuff that was done after the fact on a computer.

Bot & Dolly describes "Box" as "both an artistic statement and technical demonstration. It is the culmination of multiple technologies, including large scale robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering."

Fast Company Design explains that the "extremely precise" robots "provide movement accuracy down to the millimeter level, offering a precision that seamlessly blends the analog and digital worlds."

The technology behind projection mapping has changed drastically since it was first used in 1969. According to Projection Mapping Central, the first known case of projecting onto a nonflat surface was "The Haunted Mansion" ride at Disneyland. More recently, the technology (greatly improved, of course) was used in 2013's Tom Cruise action flick "Oblivion."

Curious to learn more about projection mapping and how it may be used down the road? "Box" creators uploaded a behind-the-scenes video that explain the technical and creative process.

Keep in mind as you watch this, that, if you were onstage, or in the audience, in person, this is actually what you would see. This was all captured, 'live', on camera, this is not special effects performed after the fact.

[VIMEO]75260457#[VIMEO]

There is also a 'behind-the-scenes, how-it-was-made' type video:

[YOUTUBE]y4ajXJ3nj1Q[/YOUTUBE]

I'm sure it's very clever and all that, but it wouldn't win Britain's Got Talent.
Give me a dancing dog any day.

Harrumph.

[youtube]m4Bm3cs9TFo[/youtube]

This is too

As I read the NY Times article below, I was reminded of Grav's posting,
and I'm really surprised that I found it starting this thread.
I think this article and the video that accompany it fit the title verywell.

(I'm sorry the NYTimes has stuck an autostart ad into their website,
but the video describing this article is worth the wait.)

Astronomers Watch a Supernova and See Reruns
NY Times - DENNIS OVERBYE = MARCH 5, 2015

The star exploded more than nine billion years ago on the other side of the universe,
too far for even the Hubble to see without special help from the cosmos.
In this case, however, light rays from the star have been bent and magnified
by the gravity of an intervening cluster of galaxies so that multiple images of it appear.

Four of them are arranged in a tight formation known as an Einstein Cross
surrounding one of the galaxies in the cluster. Since each light ray follows a different path from
the star to here, each image in the cross represents a slightly different moment in the supernova explosion.<snip>

[ATTACH]50554[/ATTACH]

“I was sort of astounded,” said Patrick Kelly of the University of California, Berkeley,
who discovered the supernova images in data recorded by the space telescope in November.
“I was not expecting anything like that at all.”

They have discovered an event in a glaxay far far away. Good that is it is 9 billion light years away.

They have Darth Vader. We have Putin. Which one would you rather have?

Vladimir Vader has a certain ring to it...

Whereas Darth Putin has a certain expectoration to it

For the time (~1744) and place (Netherlands) I think this is, indeed, awesome.
To avoid being a "spoiler" this is just one pic from here

That's remarkable. Although the knowledge was available to a lot of educated people, the ability to demonstrate for teaching, and at least make the uneducated aware, was very difficult because of complexity.

smrt

I saw a "2014" and "2015" label in the photos. I'm assuming that the curators replace the year disk when it is used up, and that he didn't paint all the years since the 1700s on there...