Digital firm gets things in perspective with 3D images

In the strange world of the "flip" and the "morph", the "lenticular" and the "holograph", the intangible seems tangible and adults can't help but react with the same surprised delight as children.

The terms are all associated with 3D images, which are serious business for one small Dublin company. But also fun.

Several passers-by can't help but stop, return, and lean right and then left before an array of "3D Windows" on display in a small meeting room in Dublin.

The latest offering from Reverse Perspective, a unique interactive holographic image company based in Dublin's Digital Hub, the 3D images come in a range of sizes from postcard to billboard and can be used for advertisements - a Reverse Perspective 3D poster for King Kong was used for the film's British launch - or as artworks in their own right.

The 121cm-high King Kong poster by the meeting room's entrance is what initially makes people stop but then they stay to look at more delicate images such as a 92cm by 60cm enlargement of a luscious pink orchid that seems to unfurl straight into the viewer's space, or the wizened tree whose branches and roots seem to thrust out into the air before an onlooker.

"It's a way of transforming and enhancing a space," says Helen Maguire, managing director of Reverse Perspective.

The company claims to offer the cheapest holographic images in the world to the advertising and promotion sectors, drawing upon an unusual consortium partnership arrangement with several companies around the world.

Reverse Perspective's key partner is Colour Holographic Ltd UK, a company that has pioneered the transformation of holograms from novelty items, whose technical production processes limited images to postcard size, into poster and billboard- sized images of extraordinary detail and depth.

"We can do images for 30 per cent less than anyone else," Maguire says. This enticement, and globally recognised expertise and patented processes for producing the intriguing imagery, has led to commissions from top- line clients ranging from Nike to Sony, Miller, Cadbury, Budweiser, Guinness and Nintendo.

As part of a two-year deal with Warner Bros, Reverse Perspective has produced interactive hologram film posters for Warner Bros for films such as Lord of the Rings, the Matrix series, Troy, Harry Potter, Oceans 12, The Last Samurai and other films.

For the posters, actual film footage is often embedded in holographic form into the poster so that as a viewer alters perspective in front of the poster, the film clip "plays" in 3D.

The production process for a full colour hologram, however, is expensive and special lighting is needed for proper display. That led the company to return to the simpler "lenticular", to experiment in making this form of 3D image, familiar to millions of children from Pokemon cards and novelty toys, a more sophisticated and artistic medium.

Basically a series of sequential images from different angles laced together to form a high-tech version of a child's flipbook (each image is called a "flip"), lenticulars were invented in 1908 and have been delighting children and adults ever since.

But Reverse Perspective hope to move their lenticulars - which they are calling 3D Windows - beyond commercial applications to artworks suitable for gallery exhibitions and personal collections. That's where the orchid and tree images come in. They are part of a series of images from nature that Reverse Perspective is offering as a series of limited editions or one-off commissions for clients and interiors and homeware companies in Ireland and abroad.

"They can be any size," says Maguire, holding up a 3D lenticular of a moss-covered tree. "Just look at the cobwebs, and the detail of the leaves. They are really restful. We'd like people to be more inspired by nature. You look at a 3D image and you're really intrigued. We hope that makes people look more closely at things, and want to get out and walk through a forest; really look at a tree."

The large orchid is part of a commission for the home of a client. The poster-size image would work out at about €3,000, says Maguire, and such artworks will be mounted, framed and signed by Reverse Perspective's creative director, Jon Mitton, an internationally recognised 3D sculptor and holographic artist. He also has created a specialist lenticular camera for producing the detailed images.

The company is already fulfilling a number of commissions. One private commission has seen them fill a home in the K Club with a range of 3D Windows, from garden perspectives to a three-dimensional transformation of a Nasa-licensed image of the sun, taken from space, into a series of panels on a bedroom wall. A basement wall is entirely covered with lenticular views of a Japanese garden, making it seem the viewer could walk out through the wall into green tranquillity.

Meanwhile, a nightclub has filled a hallway with 3D Windows where the viewer appears to be walking into a completely different world as he moves along the corridor, says Maguire.

The "windows", which are made of a hardy and thick laminate, can be installed anywhere, from a wall to a ceiling or even on the floor. The company is in discussion with a number of venues about special exhibitions around themes, but is also looking for a gallery space for a proper artistic exhibition of work in the coming year.

3D Windows have already been used for advertising campaigns in train and Dart stations and Maguire says they can be surprisingly cost-effective.

Where a hologram costs around €8,000 just to set up and more to roll out as a once-off production, a 3D Window costs about €2,000 for the "origination" - the artwork and creation of the image, and a small sample work - then can be reproduced for about €150 each for 500 A4 "Windows".

The company has also just perfected a way of making the 3D Windows waterproof - which means lenticular billboards may be gazing down at you before long. But Maguire's real love is clearly the artistic possibilities of lenticular nature images.

www.reverseperspective.com