Seen description: Visualising and crafting data in mixed realities

Abstract

The immense potential of the convergence of digital technologies such as, 3D scanning and photogrammetry, 3D printing, motion capture, real time performance capture and mapping, camera tracking, interactive lighting and virtual production, is yet to be fully grasped, exploited and appreciated. The creative aspects of this technology convergence offer exciting new opportunities for the visualisation, mixing and crafting of materials from the physical and digital worlds; real world objects can be 3D scanned, manipulated digitally, printed out using the 3D printing process, and painted in the real world to be used as set dressing on a virtual production set to be recorded on digital video. The real and digital states of objects have become fluidly interchangeable offering unprecedented creative control to artists to shape the world at will. This paper highlights some of the possible applications – beyond the mainstream usage in film and games production – that the convergence of these technologies offer based on case studies of select student and staff projects undertaken at The National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University, UK. These applications include, but are not limited to, creative art, photography, digital heritage and preservation, and customised applications for rehabilitation of patients.