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What do we mean when we say the image has 3D qualities?
When we look at the Shroud we see what looks like a picture. What to our eyes seems like the highlights, lowlights, and cast shadows of reflected light on a human form is not light at all. It is certainly not light as a camera would detect it or an artist would see it and translate it to canvas. Technical image analysis reveals no directionality to the implied light of the highlights and shadows. The brightness does not come from any angle. It is not from above or below, nor from the right or the left, nor from the front.
So what does the visually blended tonality of the image represent if not reflected light? With computer software we can plot the relative lighter and darker areas seen in the images and produce a three-dimensional isometric drawing of the body. With computerized virtual reality we can view the body from different angles. We can see the slope of the nose, the recesses of the eye sockets and the shape of the torso. It seems that the image is a graphic representation of the distance between any part of the body and the cloth.
In a sense, the images on the Shroud are terrain maps. This means that each visually blended color shade (or the density of pixels) represents the distance between the cloth and the part of the body the cloth is covering at that point. In the case of the Shroud, we do not get a perfect three-dimensional rendering for many reasons. First, the distance could be distorted by the drape of the cloth. We can assume it was not perfectly flat. The image quenches at about 3 or 4 centimeters. That means that no image is present for parts of the body that are more than about one and a half inches distance from the cloth.
We don’t know how linear the scale might be in the image formation process; e.g., is twice as close twice as light. We might know the linearity if we knew how the images were created, but we don’t. Also, the image is very old—medieval or much older—and we don’t know how fading of the images and the aging of the cloth might have altered the accuracy of the distance that is encoded. Finally bloodstains and dirt certainly cause distortions.
That there is a distance encoded representation, at all, is amazing and puzzling. It is important to note that no identified works of art, artifacts or relics of any kind will produce a 3D plot like the one produced from the Shroud. Researchers have tried every imaginable artistic method including bas-relief rubbings, scorching with hot statues, daubing the surface with pigment dust, and image transfer rubbings. Nothing works to produce a 3D plot. A way to envision this is with the pic
This is startling. You cannot do this with a regular photograph or a painting or any known type of pictorial art. There is nothing at all like this imagery in the history of art.
With computer software we can plot the relative lighter and darker areas seen in the images and produce a three-dimensional isometric drawing of the body. With computerized virtual reality we can view the body from different angles. We can see the slope of the nose, the recesses of the eye sockets and the shape of the torso. It seems that the image is a graphic representation of the distance between any part of the body and the cloth. This is startling. You cannot do this with a regular photograph or a painting or any known type of pictorial art. There is nothing at all like this imagery in the history of art.
See: What is the VP-8 Image Analyzer and what is its significance?
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© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York
