HoloPainting Combines Light Painting, Stop Motion, and Hyperlapse

“HoloPainting” is a newly invented technique that combines light painting, stop motion, and hyperlapse to create animated, 3D holograms consisting of pure light.

Neat, huh? The technique was created by the Vienna, Austria-based time-lapse and film production company FilmSpektakel as part of a university graduation project.

Here’s how it was done: the team built a giant room-sized 3D scanner by using 24 cameras, Raspberry Pi computers, and tripods arranged in a circle. The cameras shoot the subject in the circle with a delay of 83 milliseconds between each camera, allowing it to capture movement.

They then spent countless hours carefully cutting out the subject from each photo and placing them onto a black background. Using the pixelstick, a special computerized light-painting stick with 200 LEDs, they were able to paint those images into photos with light painting.

By shooting the light painting photos from the exact positions of the original cameras, the team was able to recreate the original animation as a 3D holographic light painting animation. Voila! HoloPainting.

Here’s a making of video that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the project and how the technique works: