6-D Photography

Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor in "camera culture," is currently working on what he calls "6-D photography" that would go beyond current 3-D films and even holographic images. The difference between a 3-D image and a hologram is that one can move around the latter image on a horizontal plane and see it from different angles. What 6-D would do is create the full illusion of the actual object by having it reflect light from outside the image. For example, a director could use a 6-D image on the set and actually light it the way he would light any real person or object physically present.

Raskar, who will be offering a demonstration of the technology at Siggraph in August, cautions that 6-D won't be in use anytime soon. The current cost for such an image is $30 a pixel, so a single frame of a widescreen image would cost in the neighborhood of $30 million. "Clearly, this is cutting edge," said Raskar, who said it will be some time before a director like Steven Spielberg will have this technology available for one of his films.

Source: Variety