3-D images embedded in solid materials offer ‘wow’ factor
Brian Morton
Sun
IAN SMITH/VANCOUVER SUN Roderick Quin of Quin Media Arts & Sciences shows optical tiles that change with different lighting conditions and angles of view. His software program called Ombrae transforms any surface into a 3-D image.
A Vancouver company is offering architects and designers a new tool for adding that wow factor to their structures and spaces — a method of embedding 3-D hologram-like images into any solid material, even concrete walls.
“It can be any image in any material at any scale,” Roderick Quin, founder and CEO of Quin Media Arts & Sciences [Q-MAAS], said in an interview Tuesday. “The material is the image.”
Quin, previously a sculptor of props for many Hollywood productions, developed the Ombrae System software that creates the images.
Quin, who said Q-MAAS can transform any surface into a 3-D canvas that interacts with light and shadow, added that he’s getting a lot of interest from architects and designers, many from different parts of the world.
He said their tiles can be used in architecture, interior design, landscape design and more.
Q-MAAS has signed a contract to use its technology on an interior wall at the University of B.C.’s Ladha Science Student Centre. The 2.4 metre-by-4.8 metre “canvas” is called Counting Cloud #1, which is a photographic display of a cloud image.
Quin said that his company is still getting its financing in place, but is projecting $750,000 in sales over the next year. He wouldn’t give the cost of the UBC instalment.
According to a news release, Q-MAAS received approval by the National Research Council for software development and market research project funding.
Quin described the process as a “digital system that creates three-dimensional pixels, which are physically interacting with light that falls on them. It creates a 3-D image.”
As the viewer moves, the image changes, he added.
Kim Johnston, a partner with Johnston Davidson Architecture, architects for the Ladha Centre, said in an interview that she believes the technology will catch on in a big way.
“I think it has immense possibilities,” she said. “These guys have very interesting ideas. It [Counting Cloud #1] looks fantastic.”
Johnston said she first found out about Q-MAAS while judging a public art competition in Richmond.
“We loved the idea of big images being seen from several directions.”
She says the technology would be “absolutely fantastic” for the Olympics, because wall designs could create, for example, the appearance of a speed skater in motion.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
