Stereosculpture - Neurovirtual Space III

Controls:

(Click on applet to activate it.)

i, k - j, l - a, d - w, s -	move forward and backward move left and right turn left and right look up and down
f - h - q -	fix gaze on pillar (toggle) hide sculpture (toggle) hide background (toggle)
1, 2, 3 -	choose level>

Neurovirtual Space III

A stereogram needs to be flat to work, right? That's what I always believed, until I proved myself wrong with this stereosculpture, first developed as part of a public art proposal for a large research, office and commercial building in Singapore.

The content of the stereogram is not very exciting, but I really like the concept: a real structure that, when viewed as a stereogram, takes on a different form in space, which intersects the real form, making it disappear, so to speak. And viewing the sculpture from different angles results in different stereograms as well.

The applet below lets you walk around the stereosculpture and view it from different directions. The huge pillar (2.6m diameter and about 17m high) is part of the building, standing in an atrium that spanned three levels. What turns it into a stereogram are the ten radial fins (green in this simulation). The two lighter bands next to the pillar represent the balustrades of Levels 2 and 3.

Such a big stereogram could have only been viewed with cross-eyed viewing, but for this simulation parallel viewing works just as well.

Scroll further down for some selected viewing angles and further comments.

This is the easiest angle to view the sculpture as a stereogram; positioned on Level 2 in the plane of the longest fin, such that we see that fin edge-on, and the fins on either side are symmetrical.

To achieve the stereogram effect, fuse the two fins on the left with the two on the right like you would a stereo pair.

Here we are again facing the edge of a fin, but the fins on the left are shorter than those on the right, making it harder to fuse them. If you do manage to do so, however, the result is a bit more interesting. This is a view from Level 1.

Facing the pillar between two fins makes it harder to view it as a stereogram, but if we get close enough, like here from Level 2, we get a view that can be fused in three different ways: fuse the two fins closest to the centre into one fin, fuse the left pair and the right pair into one pair, or fuse the two outer fins into one. The last option creates the most interesting effect, with the centre fin flanked by two fins that appear to have a different 3d form, although each is only seen by one eye.

This is a random viewing angle from Level 1. While not easy at all, it is still possible to fuse it as a stereogram.