Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

A few days ago I bought myself an early solstice present, a point-and-shoot Fuji FinePix REAL 3D W3 digital camera. It’s got dual lenses, which are primarily there for shooting 3D videos and pictures but can also do cool stuff like taking two simultaneous photos using different exposure settings and tricks like that. Even cooler, it’s got a no-3D-glasses-required lenticular screen on the back so you can view your popping-right-out-of-the-camera images after you take them. This is actually the only way that I have to view 3D right now, so as you can imagine I’ve been eyeballing another toy — Caitlin (poor injured Caitlin) has been coveting a projector, and to my amazement you can get 3D capable ones for well under a grand.

I’m totally sold on the notion that 3D isn’t just a trend. Right now the market is set to flood and I think, in time, be dominated by simple dual lense 3D cameras. As 3D televisions and monitors, especially those that use lenticular screens and other methods that allow you to enjoy the 3D images and videos without special glasses, become the norm, we’ll forget all about 2D just like we’ve forgotten about black and white — “oh, how quaint” we’ll think when we watch old and strangely “flat” 2D movies. If I have to predict the evolution of the technology, I’d say that this will be followed by cameras that are able to also record per-pixel depth information in addition to what our eyes and brains will interpolate from the stereogram. I imagine this will begin with something that works a lot like the Kinect and then moves on up to something like a laser depth scanner like what the clever cars that drive themselves use, or what wealthy police departments use to record a crime scene. After that the next logical step is to include GPS, gyroscopes, accelerometers and other tech that lets the camera become aware of its location, in order to allow a person to take multiple photos of a scene which can then be reconstructed into a true 3D scene where the viewer can travel through it rather than being forced to stand in the photographer’s shoes. This could also work with multiple cameras, and would be incredibly immersive. I don’t see any reason why this entire evolution has to take more than a few years.

For now, I’m going to try and convert some of the pictures (manually) into “jiggle 3D” and see how that goes. The rest of the entry with more of that is after the break.

Anyway, feel free to click on through if you haven’t already. Hope it doesn’t crash your browser.

I spent the first day with the camera walking all around the house taking pictures of everything — here’s the progress I’ve made on the trike frame. This is the final foam, but it still needs to be carved down a lot, since the tube is going to be less than 1.5″ in diameter, although of course it will grow again once it’s wrapped in fiberglass. I’ve already done a small triangular test piece in order to both see how strong it is, and to ensure that the resin doesn’t melt the foam or anything horrific like that. I think though that before I do much carving that I’ll get the mechanical and electrical/electronic elements built. These consist of the front forks and the rear drive system, as well as brakes, lights, controls, and gauges and so on. It will be something for me to look forward to while I’m spending the holidays in the hospital.

Continuing to walk and take pictures, something that looked stunning on the display were all the ropes from the suspended reading platform (which is another project begging completion). You can click it for a closeup but nothing that you see jiggling here can compare with how cool it looks on the real camera. The camera has significant room for improvement, which is to be expected for a first generation camera, but I’m really having a lot of fun that brings me back to memories of the first digital cameras. Long, long, long ago a Kodak representative came into Stainless Studios, in probably ’94 or ’95, and loaned Caitlin and Ryan and the rest of us a first gen digital camera. 640×480 seemed so amazing back then.

It’s a little weak on closeup photos (and the lenses make it very difficult to do those anyway) but it takes really nice landscape photos.

Tonight Ari and I cooked our dear invalid Caitlin a wonderful shrimp dinner, using the so-called “gigantico” shrimps that come 9-12 per pound and are just massive. In addition to a nice stirfry of carrots, broccoli, and zucchini in udon noodles that had just the perfect amount of grilling, the shrimp (and all of it) was done in a sauce of fresh ginger, garlic, chiles, coconut, and mango. I’ve made a few meals lately that have turned out really deliciously (before this the flesh of choice was big fat sea scallops that make my mouth water just thinking about), which was nice after a couple lazy failures, and I’m hoping that this shrimp meal gives me pleasant dreams. Nefarious was out of town going to the circus with her grandmother and cousins this weekend, and her being gone combined with worrying about Caitlin’s injury gave me horrible epic religious nightmares.

The desert was strawberries in a sauce of brown sugar and squeezed lemon with whipped cream on top.

Oh, and speaking of religion, even though I’m an avowed atheist, the one thing that makes me ponder the possibility that Occam’s Razor leans toward the supernatural is thinking about the depths of physics. The sort of questions that made my head hurt as a child — how did time begin? What is the smallest unit of measurement? Does the universe have a border? I devour books and websites on these subjects, so maybe that played into my nightmares as well.

Oh, and as I mentioned in the previous entry I’ve started making human skull candles (the first of which has since been melted down and re-made with a triple wick). Today I got a big UPS order of new essential oils and soap bases (I know I’ve waffled on it, but I think when I get out of the hospital in the new year I will actually set up an Etsy store after all), and most excitedly, a big ten-plus pound block of Canadian beeswax. It has an incredibly strong and pleasurable scent, so if you like the smell of beeswax, this is as good as it gets (yes, they’re for sale). It’s also a nice colour, much darker and richer than the one below.

Anyway, it’s getting late, and I’ve got to go to bed (as soon as Enemy Mine ends that is), so I haven’t bothered proof-reading this. Apologies both for the bandwidth used and the errors in blog-communicology. Oh, the movie just ended. The end.

P.S. Don’t worry, I won’t be making a habit of jiggling entries.