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Spider-Man
3-D Ride
 Talk
about your ultimate Web experience...its the Amazing Adventures
of Spider-Man Ride at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure
theme park.
Put on your 3-D glasses for an eye-popping, pulse-pounding,
first-of-its-kind 3-D thrill ride. Careening through the streets
and swinging high above the city, you’ll see, hear and
actually feel the action of the web-slinger’s most amazing
adventure ever. It's good vs. evil as Spidey battles 3-D monsters
that jump on your vehicle.
Since Islands of Adventure opened a few years ago, Spider-Man
has been the park's most popular ride. Wait time can sometimes
average between 75 and 90 minutes, longer than the park's
signature rides, The Hulk and Dueling Dragons coasters.
The new movie Spider-Man 2 introduces classic Marvel
villian Dr. Octopus. Riders can see the Doc Ock in action
on the ride, too.
Missouri
State Parks and Historic Sites in 3-D
Stereo photographer Larry Stephey is making it his mission
to document every Missouri State Park and Historic Site in
3-D. Stephey is sharing examples of his stereoscopic trek
on the Web in full-color 3-D images in various parallel and
cross-eye views.
"I just completed my tour of the Kansas City region,
tornados and all," said Stephey. "I will have all
those parks and historic sites on the Web site. The one stop
I made in the Central region in Sedalia completes that region
for me, too. I also stopped by Finger Lakes State Park near
Columbia, Missouri, again and took some more shots. From Friday
to Monday one weekend (in June, 2004), I drove 890 miles,
camped three nights and visited 12 parks."
The Missouri 3-D images currently online include
- Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site in Hillsboro,
Missouri
- Locust Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site in Laclede,
Missouri
- Flowers at Hickam House at Rock Bridge Memorial State
Park in Columbia, Missouri
- Nursery at Van Meter State Park in Miami, Missouri
- First Missouri State Capitol State Historic Site in St.
Charles, Missouri
- Buzzard's Roost at Mark Twain State Park in Stoutsville,
Missouri
- Felix Valle State Historic Site in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri
- Visitor's Center at Cuivre River State Park in Troy, Missouri
- Hawn State Park in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri
- State Capitol Building, Jefferson Landing State Historic
Site in Jefferson City, Missouri
- Boardwalk at Johnson's Shut-ins State Park in Middle Brook,
Missouri
- Bluebonnets at Battle of Athens State Park in Revere,
Missouri
Almost 18 million people annually visit Missouri's 83 state
parks and historic sites. Missouri State Parks and Historic
Sites are administered by the Missouri
Department of Natural Resources. Stephey is not affiliated
with the Department of Natural Resources or the Division of
State Parks.
Is
This Tomorrow? Presents 3-D Comic Strip on July 12, 2004
 Kelly
Shane and Woody Compton are the creative minds and talent
behind the weekly online comic strip Web site, Is This
Tomorrow?. New comic strips are posted every Monday.
On July 12, 2004, to celebrate its first year online, the
comic strip will be presented in 3-D anaglyphic format. Kelly
Shane told 3-D Review Online Magazine the strip will
be "a tribute to 50s science-fiction films." The
strip's artist is also working on a short article about his
own obsession with 3-D images for the site.
To see the comic in 3-D, you'll need a pair of 3-D glasses.
Compton is sending free
3-D glasses to people who send an e-mail who ask politely
and include their name and address.
"I really have no idea how to do 3-D conversions,"
said Compton. "I have simply looked at the art I have
seen in 3-D comics and taken my best guess. I noticed that
in 3-d comics, the blue image being to the right of the red
image caused that part of the picture to stand out and blue
being to the left created depth. I simply tried to replicate
this appearance in the 3-D art."
"The drawings themselves were not handled in any special
way. They are just black and white drawings on things I thought
might look good in 3-D. The only exceptions to this were a
couple of simple rules I learned from seeing poorly done 3-D.
Often the 3-D glasses don't cancel out well with the printed
art. This is most obvious when large areas of black are used
or layers of depth don't happen in small steps. To prevent
problems with poor cancellation, I tried to use thicker lines
for the art, and make the large areas of black exist in the
flat plane of the 3-D where the colors are overlapped to make
brown."
"I could probably convert most any picture to 3-D, but
the few I experimented with steered me in the direction of
a certain type of art that was most appropriate. I tried to
make my drawings follow my own rules and they seem to work
pretty well."
"The method I've used is to scan in the original drawing.
The original is the red layer. It remains untouched. The blue
layer is made from the original, but I make 10 layers in Adobe
Photoshop™. I keep the original layer untouched for
comparisons to the altered layers. The other layers are made
by erasing everything in the layer except what I'd like on
a particular layer of depth. Then I go to the next layer of
depth, and erase everything except what needs to be in the
next layer, including the art that was used in the first layer.
After creating nine layers that when layered over each other
make one complete drawing, I grab each layer and move them.
I will take the layer that goes back from flat and pull that
to the left. One that goes deeper than that goes further o
the left. The layers that should come out of the page are
pulled to the right. The layers should not be too far apart
in the amount of shift to prevent eye-fatigue. After making
the shifts I print out the new image."
"Now that the art is shifted, I need to white-out overlapping
art, and fill in missing art that was left open after some
of the art was moved. I make these corrections and scan the
image back in the computer. I line the blue image (the adjusted
and corrected one) to line up with the red image by using
the panel border. Now both the "blue" and "red"
images are still black and white. I convert them to red and
blue line art in Adobe Photoshop™ and make transparent
layers set to darken. This creates and 3-D image with red,
blue and brown colors. I flatten the image and save as a JPEG
and the image is done."
According to Kelly, "In 1991, Woody Compton, a talented
artist and good friend, and I began creating comics for The
Florida Flambeau, a student-run newspaper affiliated with
Florida State University and Florida A&M in Tallahassee,
FL. I was finishing up my English degree from FSU, doing a
little writing for the Flambeau Arts section and working at
an indie record store. Woody worked at a local news dealer/bookstore,
after having spent a number of years at the best comic shop
in town, where I first met him. More or less, I wrote the
strips and he drew them, but how we developed the ideas and
forms varied from comic to comic."
 "We
always saw the strip as experimental in form.They were, in
theory, to be entertaining and humorous, but Woody and I were
fascinated as to how the comic format could be exploited in
ways rarely seen in the medium, especially ways rarely seen
in strips. We were both excited by comics' potential and unhappy
with what was being done with them in the mainstream. Here
was an opportunity to do something about it, at least on a
small scale."
"Is This Tomorrow? strips were filled with bad
attitude and bad taste. What can I say? We were angry young
men. As fans of William S. Burroughs, John Waters, S. Clay
Wilson and the early Mothers of Invention, we probably thought
these strips were relatively restrained. Underground comics,
punk rock and Dada informed our outlook. Perhaps in our deluded
youth, we thought we could shock the bourgeois into self-recognition."
"But the subject matter managed to upset the Arts Editor,
and the paper ran the strip less and less frequently. We worked
on strips into 1992, but the Flambeau just wouldn't print
them. We decided to turn in a comic that we knew they would
never publish. When Woody got the art back, there was a big
NO! written on the page. And thus ended the original run of
Is This Tomorrow?, cut down in its prime."
"The title, Is This Tomorrow?, was taken from
a comic book created in the 1940s by the Catholic Church Is
THIS Tomorrow? concerning the dangers of communism. We
found it to be a silly, yet evocative name. Considering this
was just a couple of years after the Berlin Wall fell, we
thought we might be on the cutting edge of Cold War nostalgia,
though it hasn't happened yet."
Anachrome
3-D Glasses
 Anachrome
3-D glasses have taken 3-D anaglyphic glasses to a new level.
Anachrome 3-D. Not only has the company created some of the
most advance anaglypic glasses for TV and computer viewing,
they have also created high quality lenses specially designed
for viewing 3-D closely on a computer.
There are two distinct formulas for Anachrome 3-D glasses,
Anchrome and Mirachrome.
Anachrome have mild diopter correction, which sharpens the
red image to match the cyan. They work well with TV and computers
for folks with normal to near-sighted vision. Mirachrome have
stronger diopters so they work well when using a computer
closely...they are not for TV.
People with normal to far-sighted vision can use them with
computers. For viewing a DVD on a TV monitor more than five
feet away, everyone gets a better result with the Anachrome
formula.
Anachrome 3-D to
Photograph and Film 2004 Olympics in 3-D
Anachrome 3-D, a company based in North Hollywood, California,
is hoping to change the way the International Olympic Commitee
will want to present the 2008 Games! Optional...High Definition
3-D...wall to wall! Anachrome 3-D is asking for help to make
that happen by demonstrating interest in 3-D sports coverage!
Anachrome 3-D hopes to get some killer coverage this year
to make their point. Anachrome 3-D will be posting a least
400 3-D stills on a special password controlled section of
their Web site. You can get that
password with the purchase of a pair of Anachrome 3-D glasses.
Just add the words Olympic Password to your ordering note
or letter. Actual posting of the 3-D images will begin on
August 1.
Anachrome 3-D will be shooting the venues and prep at the
Athens sites in mid July. They are also talking to Olympic
press officials, while in Athens to hopefully get a few venues
with good access for 3-D. "It is in the lap of the "Olympic
Gods" how much 3-D we are permitted to shoot. We have
wide-screen HD 3D cameras, as well as NTSC three-chip 3-D
camera rigs, and very good dual five-meg still cameras. We
also have the ability of converting good flat images to 3D.
We will be there for prep time and as many events as they
allow us to cover. We'll certainly get the local color of
this historic return to the original home of "The Games".
Just in case "Sports Illustrated" or a similar magazine
offers 3-D, you'll have much sharper clarity than paper glasses
can deliver!"
2004 National Stereoscopic
Assocation 3-D Exposition Update
 The
National Stereoscopic Association (NSA) will hold its annual
3-D Exposition in Portland, Oregon July 7 through July 12,
2004. The public event will open with a full day of 3-D movies
at Cinema 21 followed by four days of events at Jantzen Beach
Doubletree including stereo slide and digital projections,
workshops and special interest meetings, an auction of 3-D
paraphernalia and two days of the world's largest 3-D trade
fair.
This year's Expo, hosted by the Cascade Stereoscopic Club
of Portland, will have several special features including
a full day of 3-D movies on Wednesday from 9:15 am to 5 pm.
The 3-D movies are open to anyone registered for Wednesday's
activities or for the full convention. A highlight is the
American premiere of The Little Magician. New York
based actor/producer, Tirlok Malik's Little
Magician was produced in 2003 and is a magical tale about
the adventures of a little boy who moves from India to New
York City and befriends three American kids and a dog. The
majority of this 3-D film is shot in New York City and represents
the first time that both American and Indian children have
acted together. Little Magician has achieved success at the
Indian box office and will be released in the U.S. soon by
the NRI TV Film Club. Malik will be present after the screening
to answer questions and tell a little about the filming.
The featured 3-D short subject will be Sea Dream,
the award winning and popular film by Academy Award® winner
Murray Lerner. Lerner created a fundamental breakthrough in
the creative use of 3-D with Sea Dream at Florida's
Marineland and Magic Journeys for the Kodak Pavilion at EPCOT.
Not only has Sea Dream won a number of awards, but
it was also the first of only two 3-D films to be officially
included in the Cannes Film Festival. It has been licensed
worldwide by major theme parks over twenty countries, including
Korea, Australia, England, Holland, Germany, U.S. and France.
In many of those venues it has run for 5 to 10 successive
years. A rare print of the film has been restored and is being
provided for the screening. Lerner will be the keynote speaker
at the convention's awards banquet Saturday night. Spacehunter
and Friday the 13th, Part III will begin the day of
movies.
Another notable first for the Expo is a specially designed
postal cancellation which will commemorate the event. An employee
of the Post Office will be present on Saturday to cancel postcards
and envelopes for anyone who would like to collect what is
believed to be the first postal cancellation in 3-D. The cancellation
will continue to be available for one month at a local post
office.
Three days of workshops, 3-D digital and slide projections,
displays and exhibitions will culminate in an awards banquet
Saturday night with a keynote address by Murray Lerner. Best
known as the director of From Mao to Mozart, for which
he received the Academy Award®, Lerner will discuss his
career in film making and his continued interest in 3-D filming.
Virtually every film Lerner has produced, whether 3-D or not,
has won an important award at a major film festival; Secrets
of the Reef was voted one of the 10 Best by Time Magazine,
To Be a Man won a Blue Ribbon First Prize at the American
Film Festival, and Festival, a full length documentary
about the Newport Folk Festival featuring Bob Dylan, won the
San Giorgio award at the Venice International Film Festival
as well as an Academy Award® nomination.
The NSA convention and 3-D Expo draws 3-D enthusiasts from
all over the world. Schedule and registration information
are available at www.nsa2004.com or by calling (503) 655-5326.
Registration for the expo is available now online or in person
at the Doubletree Jantzen Beach beginning Tuesday, July 6.
Wednesday's 3-D movie day registration will also be available
at Cinema 21 beginning at 8:30 am, Wednesday, July 7.
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