array

This ‘4D’ Portrait Was Captured with a Crazy Rig of 53 GoPro Cameras

Using a single, ordinary still camera, you can shoot a traditional 2D static portrait of a person. With an array of multiple still cameras, you can stitch together a 3D portrait. To add yet another dimension, you can use video cameras instead of still cameras.

That's what Tim Macmillan, the founder of a company called Timeslice Films, did. Using a crazy camera array of 53 GoPro cameras, Macmillan created a moving 4D portrait of his own head.

CamSwarm Turns Multiple Phones Into a Bullet-Time Camera Array

The "bullet time" effect popularized by the 1999 film The Matrix is generally done by arranging a large number of still cameras on a circular track, so most of the rigs out there cost quite a bit of money to put together. A Columbia University researcher named Yan Wang is trying to make bullet-time imaging more accessible. With his CamSwarm technology, all you need is a group of friends who have smartphones or tablets.

The Google Jump 360° Camera Rig Uses 16 GoPros

Google today announced a new virtual reality system called Jump that uses a special new camera rig created in partnership with GoPro. It's a crazy-looking 360-degree camera array that uses 16 separate GoPro cameras.

This is the Result of Fooling Around with an Array of 140 Canon DSLRs

Simon Byrnes of The Pixelist operates a time-freezing camera array consisting of 140 Canon 1100D (AKA the Rebel T3) DSLRs. One client has been the UK show Got To Dance, for which the cameras are used to capture bullet-time sequences of dancers. During a period when the TV show was off air, Byrnes decided to have some fun with the rig and captured some shots that became the video above. It's titled "The Timefreezers."

Nokia Invests in Pelican Imaging for Lytro-style Cell Phone Cameras

Lytro is seeing more and more competition these days, as more and more companies are jumping into the "snap now, focus later" game. There are now apps that mimic the technology, and companies like Toshiba are working on building Lytro-style smartphone camera modules.

Lytro's latest challenger may be quite a formidable foe: it appears that Nokia has invested in Pelican Imaging, another startup that's working on building Lytro-style smartphone camera arrays.

Creating 3D Portraits Using an Array of Digital Cameras

Chilean visual artist Felipe Baeza is doing some pretty interesting work with Matrix-style camera rigs. Instead of bullet time videos, Baeza uses his rig to create 3D portraits of subjects that can then be displayed in augmented reality or through a 3D model viewer.