This may sound like heresy. Maybe the 3D information encoded in the image doesn’t represent body to cloth distance. I see in Wikipedia, “optical physicist and former STURP member John Dee German has since noted that it is not difficult to make a photograph which has 3D qualities. If the object being photographed is lighted from the front, and a non-reflective "fog" of some sort exists between the camera and the object, then less light will reach and reflect back from the portions of the object that are farther from the lens, thus creating a contrast which is dependent on distance. Shroud researcher Colin Berry has observed that the scorch marks and holes in the shroud also produced clear 3D images under the VP8 analysis. He deduced from this that the shroud image was produced by light scorching, and has produced 3D images from scorches using appropriate software.”
I have long wondered if perhaps the apparent three-dimensional data that is the image represents something altogether different than anything we have imagined. Ray Rogers used to point out that a drop of ink on a filter paper would look like a mountain when plotted the same way (e.g. VP-8). Colin Berry is right that scorch marks and holes on the shroud produce 3D images; the scorches, obviously, are not spatial information.
Here is a link to the paper, On the Visibility of the Shroud Image by John Dee German. Given the following concluding paragraph it would be nice to see an example:
One final thought on the “impossibility” of making a photograph that has 3-D qualities: it is not impossible, or even very difficult. If a front-lighted facial portrait is taken in a chamber where a uniformly distributed, moderately dense grey or black “fog” is present, less light will reach the receding portions of the face due to absorption of the light by the fog. Furthermore, of the light that does reach the more distant parts of the subject, more of the reflected light necessary to make the photograph will be absorbed on the way back to the camera, increasing the distance dependent contrast even more.
Back in early October Hugh Farey had written here in the blog:
Almost any monochrome painting (or photograph) made full face, with the light from in front and a dark background, shows three dimensional attributes that are at least as good as and often better than those exhibited by the Shroud. This can be tested by any suitable image processing software such as ImageJ.
OK responded:
Wrong Hugh. I tested this using ImageJ. No monochrome painting or photograph has 3D properties as good, as has the Shroud -and in case of the Shroud they are callibrated to the surface of the cloth, not to the plane in infinity. Check pictures in my article:
http://ok.apologetyka.info/racjonalista/jak-nie-zosta-zrobiony-caun-turynski,473.htm
Again, I would like to see just one example of 3D plotting from a full face photograph other than the shroud. I don’t think it is so easy.
But then the question is whether or not the 3D data represents cloth to body distance. I’m not convinced that it does.
Note: Image above is taken from OK’s paper.