Have you ever been browsing a museum or art gallery, when all of a sudden the painting seems to be alive ? looking back at you? You may think that this was brought on only by a passionate connection to art, or to the particular piece you were looking at, but now one can say that technology brings art to life. How? you may ask. Well, now that life-like art can be what NTT Communication Science Laboratories calls, Projection Mapping ? or HenGenTou, which translates to ?Deformation Lamps” in Japanese.
So, how does this technology work, in order to allow a particular piece of art to ?Come alive?? Projection mapping works by projecting a grey-scale onto a static image in the shape of specific parts of the image that are required to be seen to move or change. Movement is then added to the light projected, which the brain perceives as real movement. HenGenTou can be used in ambient lighting conditions, as well as be applied to 3D objects. Some practical applications for this technology can be applied in areas such as advertising, where a smiling face or fluttering text on a sign would be an eye-catching marketing ploy, and also in interior design, where illusions of an undulating could be created on floors and walls to capture a desired effect.
NTT promises of a public demonstration of HenGenTou later this year. Their aim is to have this technology fully developed for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and widely available after that. What better way to show how technology brings art to life than at the Olympics, where a huge show and spectacle are expected? The spectator of the upcoming games can certainly be expected to enjoy an experience of art and life colliding, thanks to the ever changing and growing world of technology.