3D tribulations

[Pehr]

Michael, I would like to return to your initial comment, that started this thread.
 Maybe the difficulties you feel, working with current 3D-world modelling, has to do with what Lev Manovich says, in ”The language of new media”, I am currently studying:

Virtual spaces are most often not true spaces but collections of separate objects.

What is missing from computer space is space in the sense of medium – an environment in which objects are embedded, and the effect of these objects on each other.

The concept of  ”space-medium” is something mainstream computer graphics still has to discover.

Although 3-D computer generated virtual worlds are usually rendered in linear perspective, they are really collections of separate objects, unrelated to each other.

The ontology of virtual space as defined by software itself is fundamentally aggregate, a set of objects without a unifying point of view.

This is interesting. It seems to me that what he means is that an ensemble of objects should define its own space by their presence and mutual interactions.  (As in physics: Newton believed in an absolute space, whereas in general relativity the mere presence of material objects influences the metrics of space, e.g. what is meant by travelling in a straight line.) 

I have been into this in connection with ”colour space”.  Given a number of colour samples, you are asked to pairwise visually estimate their degree of simularity.  (For instance an orange sample has an evident similarity with red and yellow, but much less with green, and none at all with blue. )  Now, if the degree of likeness is represented as a distance, you get a kind of space – a colour space – defined by the given samples.  By statistical methods you can investigate the dimensionality of this space. It turns out that 2 dimensions is not appropriate, but 3 dimensions fits quite well, 4 dimensions would not make a better fit.  So we conclude: colour space is 3-dimensional (for a normal observer).
So the 3D space of colour is not postulated a priori, but follows from the interrelations of the ”inhabitants” of the space.

Could we accomplish something like that with computer-game spaces??
Pehr

[Chris W]

This thing about color space being objectively 3 dimensional is interesting.  Can you post a link or something that describes this more in detail?  I don't want to derail the existing thread with that discussion, but I'd like to hear more about it.

[Michaël Samyn]

Maybe what we need is a way to record 3D reality. So we don't have to start with this empty "space-less" world.

[Michaël Samyn]

Or maybe I shouldn't deny the cleanliness of 3D.
After all, on a super-clean surface, the slightest speck of dust will disturb. It's easy to dirty/warm up a clean/cold place.

[ghostwheel]

Or maybe I shouldn't deny the cleanliness of 3D.
After all, on a super-clean surface, the slightest speck of dust will disturb. It's easy to dirty/warm up a clean/cold place.

I think this is a better approach. You shouldn't fight the medium; you'll always be unhappy.

[Kjell]

You shouldn't fight the medium; you'll always be unhappy.

Agreed. And to those longing for more power .. there's light at the end of the tunnel.

http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-news/graphene-electronics-breakthrough-turns-previous-research-on-head/40034/

[Pehr]

Maybe what we need is a way to record 3D reality. So we don't have to start with this empty "space-less" world.

In fact, Manovich mentions such a project, "Aspen Movie Map" (1978) and remarks:
The idea of constructing a large-scale virtual space from photographs or a video of a real space was never systematically attempted again, despite the fact that it opens up unique aesthetic possibilities not available with 3-D computer graphics.

[Michaël Samyn]

Sounds a bit like Google Street View. Which I actually find interesting. I just wish we could all record our own worlds instead of browsing the one Google presents. Are there any cameras available that can record precise 3D position and rotation together with the image, so you can reconstruct the scene in a virtual environment later? (This sounds like Patrick Juchli's Stilla.)

[Michaël Samyn]

Or maybe I shouldn't deny the cleanliness of 3D.
After all, on a super-clean surface, the slightest speck of dust will disturb. It's easy to dirty/warm up a clean/cold place.

I think this is a better approach. You shouldn't fight the medium; you'll always be unhappy.

My happiness is irrelevant. In my experience, struggle often brings good results.

[Kjell]

Are there any cameras available that can record precise 3D position and rotation together with the image, so you can reconstruct the scene in a virtual environment later?

http://www-video.eecs.berkeley.edu/research/indoor/

[Pehr]

A found this
http://www.easypano.com
Better than I had expected. Yet, well .. hm ... don't know. Pehaps worthwhile to look a bit closer into.
Pehr

[Pehr]

And now I found Autodesks 123D Catch
http://www.123dapp.com/catch

which looks really promising ..
Pehr

[ghostwheel]

This whole topic reminds me too much of QTVR. It always seemed really clunky and slow. Photosynth is something along the same lines though I think is an interesting improvement of the same concept but it's still clunky and slow. I like the way Trauma had a sort of Photosynth-like look. Idk, I guess I just never like the static image pseudo-virtual-reality thing. To me it will always feel like a weak, stopgap for true full-motion, explorable 3d spaces.

[Michaël Samyn]

I agree. I'm only curious about this as a basis to build upon or as a detail within a real 3D simulation. I'm looking for texture, to compensate for the sterility of 3D -without needing to hire the team that built Uncharted 3.

[Pehr]

Probably 123D Catch is more useful for modelling objects than for environments?

By the way, I downloaded and looked into  ”The Hunter” (a hunting simulator). It has such an astonishingly dense, wild and variable forest to walk in. I cannot imagine that all that could have been ”hand-crafted”. On the other hand it doesn’t look as if made to pattern. It is very photo-realistic. It must have been based on photos, or films, in some way. Not to say that photo-realism is what we are looking for, but I just wonder how they did it.