Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Th'frosty the Aenar thnowman


3D Snowman

Yesterday's exciting find of photographs, lost since 1992, sent me into a nostalgia spin, determined to track down some other interesting pics I've always wanted to share.

Here is my Andorian snowman - in 3D! (Note that he won't actually appear in 3D on this monitor screen; it's just a normal 2D scan, although the background ends up with an interesting blurred effect.) Created in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 1983, with my penpal Olivia, this cute alien snowperson has a phaser and Starfleet insignia (from her Star Trek collection). He's wearing a "Go Blue!" pin, the coincidentally perfect catch cry of the local Michigan University.

Knowing what we know now about Andorians (via the TV series, "Enterprise"), this is no doubt a rare Aenar snowperson.

Nimslo 3D cameras were hot stuff in the early 1980s, and took four half-size negatives of each subject, and these images were sent off by mail order and combined under rippled plastic to create a 3D picture. I was curious as to how the combined image would scan because the negatives are filed away - oh so carefully - somewhere!

The half-sized negatives can be printed like normal negatives, and I'm thinking that (when I find them), the extreme left and right images could probably be set up side by side onscreen to permit a true 3D viewing, right here in this blog, via the "drift" (ie. crossed eyes) method. But it actually scanned in 2D fairly well as it is!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember this snowman! How cool to see him again! Now let's see a photo of the Weinermobile from the next trip! Love, Z1

Therin of Andor said...

Hey there Z1!

Okay spill it: the Weinermobile??? ;)

Therin of Andor said...

You know, I've blocked the Weinermobile from my memory. Was it at the Henry Ford Museum, or are you joshing me? (You think Steve photographed it? I'm scared to look through the packets of photos now.)