From l to r: Professor Penny Holliday, Professor Tim Jones, Professor Mark Power and Dr Stephen Jay
Scientists are providing training for North West filmmakers to enhance understanding of how the human brain processes the visual information in 3D film and television.
The Psychology Vision Laboratory lead an industry workshop to demonstrate the common problems the filmmakers face in creating naturalistic 3D film images, they also discussed the scientific factors that need to be considered to ensure that the human visual system can easily process 3D images.
Study suggests that failure to mimic the visual system in 3D film has similar effects to the visual disturbances that accompany the toxic effects of alcohol, poison or motions of the inner ear that lead to seasickness.
Dr Bernard Harper, 3D specialist at the University, said: “3D film images are created using processes that attempt to mimic the binocular nature of human vision. Each eye sees a slightly different two-dimensional image and the brain uses the difference to create a third dimension, which gives and image or object depth.
“The human visual system however, is highly complex and does not work in the same way as a film camera. A real understanding of how we view sizes, shapes, objects in motion and colour is needed in order to help filmmakers create a natural image.”