View*Productions
Sampler View-Master® Reel
 Over
the years, View*Productions received numerous requests from
collectors and retailers for a single reel that gives an
overview of the company's titles. View*Productions has published
a sampler reel that contains one image from each of its
seven 3-reel packets. The reel, item 103, was released on
July 7, 2004 and is priced at $12.
The sampler features the work of Bruce Goff, Frank Lloyd
Wright, Frank Gehry, Charles and Ray Eames and Hans Scharoun.
Two of the images are taken from packets while five of the
images, including a stunning view of Fallingwater in the
autumn, have never been released before.
A special edition of the sampler is available to direct
mail and Web customers in a translucent sleeve, numbered
and signed by Michael Kaplan and Greg Terry, founders of
View*Productions. These packets have been produced in a
run of 250 copies and will be available until they are sold
out. The regular edition of the sampler reel (unsigned)
will continue to be offered on the View*Productions Web
site and from its retailers.
View*Productions, based in Knoxville, Tennessee, offers
several custom produced View-Master® reels featuring
architecture and design classics in 3-dimensions.
View*Productions
Revised Exterior View-Master® Reel
 View*Productions
has updated one of the reels from the 3-reel packet Fallingwater:
Wright and the 3rd Dimension. The original 3-reel packet
contained reels featuring exterior, interior and details
of Fallingwater and is currently out of print. However,
View*Productions is releasing the revised first reel from
the packet as a stand alone reel.
The first reel of the packet, (Reel 302-1) originally contained
images 2 and 3 showing a steel support structure under the
concrete cantilever. This was installed to prop up the cantilevers
while they were being reconstructed. After several years
of innovative engineering and repair work, the support has
been removed, restoring the house to its original splendor
and stabilizing it for the foreseeable future.
With this work completed, View*Productions re-photographed
Fallingwater and will publish a revised reel containing
four entirely new images of the house. The revised reel
will be available starting on Sept. 15, 2004, as a stand
alone item for 90 days only to direct mail and Web customers.
From Nov. 14, 2004, it will be included in the 3-reel packet
when Fallingwater: Wright and the 3rd Dimension
is re-released. The item, Reel 302-1R, is priced at $12.
View*Productions, based in Knoxville, Tennessee, offers
several custom produced View-Master® reels featuring
architecture and design classics in 3-dimensions.
First Look at Harold Lloyd's Hollywood
Nudes in 3-D
 Harold
Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3-D will be published by
Black Dog & Leventhal on Oct. 25, 2004. In this 160-page
book is a collection of photos of his Hollywood nude shots
taken during the 40s, 50s and 60s, edited by Harold's granddaughter
Suzanne Lloyd.
Harold Lloyd, beloved silent film star, was also an avid
3-D photographer. Many of these photos have never been seen
before. They are risque and playful portraits of some of
Hollywood's most stunning beauties showcased in chapters
such as "Hollywood or Bust," "Jiggle All
the Way," "Naked Girls in Peril," and more.
There are some familiar faces among the retro glamour photos
to be featured in the book including Bettie Page, Marilyn
Monroe, Dixie Evans (who became proprietor of the Exotic
World Burlesque Museum) and Tara Stana (the exotic beauty
of such film classics as Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat!
Kill! Kill!).
Lloyd photographed actress Shirley Kilpatrick in early
1957. That was the year she filmed the movie for which she
will always be remembered, The Astounding She-Monster.
Even though she played the title role in the classic B flick,
Shirley never uttered a word. Her sexy walk said it all.
The book features a forward by actor Robert Wagner. The
book will include 3-D glasses.
Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3-D will retail
for $24.95. ISBN #1-57912-894-5. Harold Lloyd™ is
a trademark and service mark of The Harold Lloyd Trust.
Aabra
Ka Daabra - India's First 3-D Plus Film
 Aabra
Ka Daabra is India's first "3-D Plus" children's
film, a technology that allows projection in small theatres
with outdoor projection systems without losing the 3-D effect.
Creative
Eye Limited, the makers of Aabra Ka Daabra have
come out with an attractive 3-D publicity brochure for the
film. When seen with the 3-D spectacles provided along with
the brochure, it brings the images from the film to life.
The production used 21 gigantic sets, a unit of 107 professionals,
85 days of shooting, 40 children and five grown-up kids
for the film. Master Athit, Baby Hansika, Baby Isha, Master
Vishal along with Anupam Kher, Satish Kaushik, Archana Puran
Singh, Navin Bawa, Johny Lever and Cambodian beauty Tiara
are in the cast. Lyrics by Sameer, music by Himesh Reshmmiya,
production by Zuby Kochhar, technical direction Ramesh Meer
and direction by Dheeraj Kumar are the other credits. The
movie is scheduled for release in November 2004.
 Creative
Eye is using Parle G Biscuits and Camlin Ltd. Products,
makers of school supplies, for film promotions. The
promotion, mainly targeted towards children, includes merchandising
around 60 products. Products include toys based on characters
in the film and a unique 3-D book, which can be read using
special glasses. Aabra Ka Daabra publicity corners
will be set up in around 30 select multiplexes all over
India, one and half months prior to the release of the film.
Further publicity campaigns will be carried out in selected
schools and other outlets associated with children.
3-D
Center of Art and Photography
 The
Cascade Stereoscopic Club (CSC) is host of the 3-D Center
of Art and Photography located in Portland, Oregon. The
3-D Center presents to the public an entertaining and educational
presentation of both art and photography that appear three
dimensional. The center includes displays from the CSC's
collection of art and photography, in addition to things
related to current and past 3-D technology.
There also are special short duration exhibitions from
artists who use 3-D presentation as part of their art that
shouldn't be missed.
Admission is by donation. The 3-D Center of Art and Photography
is located at 1928 NW Lovejoy Street in Portland, Oregon.
You can call for more information at (503) 227-6667. CSC's
new center is located in the fashionable Northwest District
of Portland, Oregon USA. With a visible street front, the
Center occupies a space of 1,100 sq. ft. on the street level
on Lovejoy Street. The closest intersection is Lovejoy and
19th. The recently finished Portland Street Car rides on
tracks on this street. The building dates from the 1930s
and was part of Paramount Pictures Studios at one time.
The CSC is a a non-profit 501(c)(3) public corporation
devoted to all aspects of 3-D stereo art and photography.
From July 30, 2004 through Sept 19, 2004, see a new exhibit
featuring Canadian Wildflowers by 3-D Photographer
Simon Bell. The exhibition includes anaglyphs of Canadian
wildflowers viewed with cyan and red glasses. Bell's passion
for photography began when he was given a "box-brownie"
camera at six years of age. That early interest developed
into career in photography, multimedia and 3-D imagery that
continues today.
He has traveled the world with his cameras and has produced
many slide presentations and books. His 3-D StereoJet images
provided support for the Toronto Olympic bid in 2001. His
images of bugs, lizards, birds and wildcats were published
in a series of 3-D children's books by Somerville House.
His current book, due in September 2004, is about the classic
American cars in Cuba, published by Boston Mills Press.
In addition, the Center is currently running a 12-minute
underwater 3-D slide show entitled 3-D in the Sea by
John Roll which is shown several times daily.
Sensio
3-D Processor Brings Magic of 3-D Movies to Home Theatres
 A
sinister chrome spider seemingly pops out of the 120-inch-wide
home theater screen, probing and slashing at the audience
with his tentacles. The giant spider, borrowed from the
movie Terminator 2, then explodes into hundreds
of metal pieces, which appear to float around the darkened
room.
That's just one of the eye-popping special effects in a
short 3-D movie originally produced for IMAX® theaters.
Pflanz Electronics in Sioux City is offering daily showings
in its "Ultimate Theater'' to demonstrate a new product
called the Sensio™
3-D processor. The stereoscopic technology gives home theater
enthusiasts a 3-D viewing experience similar to IMAX®
theaters or theme parks like Disney World and Universal
Studios, said Will Veber, a regional sales manager for Audio
Plus Services, a Pittsburgh, N. Y.-based Sensio™ distributor.
"I'm at the point in my life where very few things
get me to say, 'Wow!'' said Veber, who has been in the audio/visual
business since 1980. "When I first saw this, even before
we started distributing it and importing to to the U.S.
from Canada, I said, 'Wow!' Now that I'm working with the
company, I'm even more 'Wow!''
Veber, who represents electronics dealers in nine Midwestern
states, said Pflanz is the first in Iowa to carry the Sensio™
product. Owner Vance Pflanz said he first experienced the
technology at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in January
in Las Vegas, where hundreds of industry officials lined
up to see a demonstration.
"The quality of it is very, very good,'' Pflanz said.
"The first time I saw it, I ducked.''
Three-dimensional movies have been around since the 1950s,
when studios introduced them primarily as a gimmick to attract
once loyal movie-goers who had turned to television as their
main form of entertainment. In recent years, the number
of feature-length 3-D films has been on the rise. Last year's
release of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, for instance, was a
box office hit.
Veber said 3-D films traditionally have been produced with
the anaglyph format, which requires viewers to wear the
familiar glasses with one blue and one red lens.
"The problem with anaglyph is you lose 50 percent
of your resolution, and you also lose a lot of your color
because you're just looking through blue and red lenses,''
said Veber, who visited Pflanz Electronics recently to help
demonstrate the Sensio™ processors.
"The stereoscopic format provides richer color and
resolution and fuller depth, " Veber said.
Viewers wear special dark-shaded 3-D glasses with electronically
controlled liquid crystal shutters. "An infrared emitter
sends left and right eye signals alternatively, 60 times
per second, to the battery-powered glasses," Veber
said. "Your brain interprets those two images, shot
at slightly different angels, as three-dimensional."
The proprietary technology was developed by Sensio™,
a small Montreal-based company founded in 1999 by two investment
bankers, Nicholas Routheir and Richard LaBerge, who wanted
to bring the magic of 3-D movies they watched at Disney
World to home theaters. Retailing for $3,000, the Sensio™
is billed as the first affordable stereoscopic system. The
glasses cost an extra $57.50 each. "Earlier stereoscopic
processors cost $20,000 to $25,000," Veber said.
The Sensio unit is compatible with most any big screen
TV and DVD player. The processor takes an interlaced signal
from a DVD player, converts it to a progressive-scan image,
adds Sensio's technology for 3-D processing, and outputs
the signal to the TV.
"It's really a very easy addition onto a home theater
system,'' Pflanz said.
At the present time, there are seven full-length movies
available in the stereoscopic format, retailing for $32.95
each. Most are of the sci-fi varieties, with titles such
as Alien Adventure, S.O.S. Planet and Haunted
Castle. A stereoscopic version of Spy Kids 3-D:
Game Over is scheduled for release.
Sensio™ plans to add two titles per month this year.
The company has plenty of material to work with. Since the
1950s, more than 250 feature-length 3-D movies have been
released.
Films must be shot with two cameras to become three-dimensional.
That's why you'll never see a 3-D version of older blockbusters
like Star Wars. But Veber noted that studios and filmmakers
are increasingly choosing to shoot in 3-D. "Most films
are now shot in a digital format, which makes 3-D production
easier than with the traditional bulky film cameras,"
he said.
"It'll never be a high definition format just because
of the anomalies at go into 3-D,'' Veber said. "But
the wow factor is at the point where people don't care if
it's high definition or not. It's something that's completely
magical.''
Excerpts
from the movie SPY KIDS 3-D: Game Over presented in Sensio™
3-D format at Consumer Electronics Show 2004
 Mega-hit
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over takes on new dimensions
at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), thanks to Sensio™
3-D technology. The Sensio™ version of Spy Kids 3-D
features unaltered colors and a 3-D experience that exceeds
the theatrical release, which used the traditional red and
blue glasses. The screening allowed show attendees to experience
this electrifying new technology first-hand, in booth #17226
during the CES show held in Las Vegas in early 2004.
Integrated in a conventional home theatre system, the 2003
CES Innovations award-winning Sensio™ 3-D gives the
audience a fully immersive experience, laying the foundation
for the next stage of home entertainment. 3-D technology
extends the viewing experience by bringing the viewer directly
into the heart of the action, a characteristic that is avidly
sought by home theater enthusiasts.
“By shooting the third installment of the Spy Kids
film in 3-D, the studio renewed the sequel concept and consequently
increased its return on investment,” says Nicholas
Routhier, Sensio™ president. The record-breaking sales
generated by Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over clearly demonstrate
the added-value of its third dimension.
Many major players in the film industry, including producers
and directors, have been quick to support Sensio’s
leading-edge technology. “As with the move from silent
films to sound-tracked or black-and-white to color, the
next leap forward in filmmaking will be 2-D to 3-D,”
says Steve Oedekerk, a producer and director whose extensive
credits include Ace Ventura and The Nutty Professor,
among others. “Santa vs. the Snowman was the first
3-D project I had ever participated in,” notes Oedekerk.
“I’m completely hooked. The Sensio™ 3-D processor
brings the future to the present. I look forward to the
day when the film Bruce Almighty will be as dimensional
as the characters themselves.”
Consortium Created
With the rapid emergence of 3-D technology and increasing
consumer demand, important members of the industry have
recently come together to create a 3-D Consortium. Sensio
is pleased to announce it has joined the likes of Sanyo,
Sharp, Sony and Toshiba in their mandate to set new standards
for the 3-D industry while making more of the technology
available to a wider market. Together, they will also work
to facilitate the creation of more extensive 3-D content.
“In the past years, the film industry has embraced
the Sensio™ 3-D format and recognized its many qualities,”
states Nicholas Routhier. “By joining the 3-D Consortium
and working closely with its members, Sensio™ is confident
that we will lay the foundation for and define a new 3-D
distribution standard that will enable us to build a bridge
between filmmakers and consumer electronics manufacturers.”
Sensio™ is also very committed to actively pursuing
all titles in the existing 3-D library consisting of more
than 200 films, with many more in the making. Titles currently
available for Sensio™ 3-D owners include Encounter
in the Third Dimension, Haunted Castle, Ultimate G’s,
Alien Adventure, Transitions, S.O.S. Planet, as well
as an adult movie called Erotek Dimension. Sensio™
plans to have at least eight new 3-D DVD titles available
in 2004.
XILINX chips help
bring 3-D to home theaters in Sensio’s award winning
3-D wireless system
Xilinx® Spartan® family of low cost programmable
chips enable breakthrough 3-D Innovation
 At
the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sensio™
and Xilinx Inc., announced a collaboration that resulted
in the breakthrough 3-D video processing technology, Sensio
3-D, winner of the CES 2003 Product Innovation Award . Sensio™
credits Xilinx and its programmable chip technology with
enabling the creative design and economic viability of its
Sensio™ 3-D Video Processing system. The Sensio™
system transforms conventional home theater into a 3-D stereoscopic
movie experience that rivals the best theme park experiences,
using Xilinx low cost Spartan programmable chips as its
central processing capability. The Sensio™ system recently
featured as the cover story in Home Theatre magazine.
Sensio™ has met with major motion picture studios
like MGM, IMAX, DreamWorks, LightStorm Entertainment and
Troublemaker Studios in efforts to build up a library of
3-D movies under Sensio 3-D DVD. Sensio plans to have eight
new 3-D titles available in 2004 for about $40 each. The
Sensio system, consisting of a 17x 6.25-inch rack-style
component compatible with commercial DVD and digital TV
systems -- and the accompanying LCD-based wireless viewing
glasses, is based on the processor’s ability to alternatively
display left and right stereo images and synchronously communicate
to the shutters in the viewing glasses. The left-eye image
and the right-eye image alternate every 60th of a second,
creating the 3-D effect for the viewer. Because objects
can appear to be behind and in front of the screen, or shoot
right through the audience, the screen itself virtually
disappears, bringing the viewer directly into the heart
of the action.
Xilinx Gains Traction in Consumer Space
Sensio™ is among a growing number of consumer product
manufacturers to realize the competitive advantage afforded
by Xilinx’s low-cost programmable chips, versus traditional
ASIC technology. Xilinx attributes its recent record-breaking
gain to its focused market diversification efforts and the
broad adoption of its low cost Spartan Series FPGAs in high-volume
consumer applications.
“Xilinx FPGA technology is helping to shape the future
of the digital age by harnessing the flexibility of a programmable
device at cost points ideal for consumer products,”
said Clay Johnson, vice president and general manager of
the General Products division at Xilinx. “Sensio’s
innovative application of our technology is a perfect example
of our efforts in bringing the digital age to the consumer
market.”
Programmable approach from the start
Product developers at Sensio™, a start-up based in
Montreal, Quebec, were familiar with Xilinx technology from
previous university research. Sensio™ considered the
trade-offs between FPGA and ASIC implementations and ultimately
decided that Xilinx programmable chips provided the superior
price/performance and quality advantages, plus the added
benefit of enhanced flexibility.
“By combining low cost, high performance, and a drastically
reduced time-to-market advantage, Xilinx programmable chips
provided the ideal platform for our 3-D video processing
system,” said Pierre-Hugues Routhier, vice president
of engineering at Sensio™.
About Xilinx Low Cost FPGAs
Xilinx first shipped the Spartan-3 family in March 2003
as the world's first and only FPGA utilizing 90nm process
technology. The Spartan-3 platform is the world's lowest
cost FPGA with unrivalled price points, starting at under
$2.95. Already, the Spartan Series is the world's most successful
low-cost FPGA family in its class with over 11,000 customers
worldwide. Since the introduction of the Spartan Series
in 1998, the company has shipped more than 60 million devices.
By continuing to set new price-density standards for the
FPGA industry, Xilinx has dramatically narrowed the price-performance
gap between programmable and fixed logic. This has driven
Spartan-3 device adoption further into higher volume consumer
applications and hastened the decline of ASIC designs.
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