{"id":3563,"date":"2017-03-04T20:23:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T20:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2017-04-20T10:44:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T10:44:16","slug":"the-finnish-trio-navigating-the-natural-world-through-3d-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/2017\/03\/the-finnish-trio-navigating-the-natural-world-through-3d-art.html","title":{"rendered":"The Finnish trio navigating the natural world through 3D art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A still from the Secret World of Moths.{credit}POHJANKONNA OY{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

In one film, \u201cThe Death of an Insect<\/a>\u201d, three animators, filmmakers, and game creators turned science communicators have given a group of dead insects one last dance.<\/p>\n

Against a backdrop of stunning imagery \u2013 some monochrome or solidly black or white \u2013 the insects hovered, floated, and swam though air as if held by invisible strings in a stunning feat of 3D modeling and stop motion photography that is as equally meditative as it is poetic \u2013 and perhaps only slightly macabre. The insects that waltzed and flew through urban landscapes \u2013 dead but not lifeless \u2013 were collected from attics and sheds, and their choreography delicately animated in the studios of Pohjankonna Oy, the production company behind this\u00a0experimental picture.<\/p>\n

In their other film \u201cThe Secret World of Moths<\/a>\u201d showing at the 3rd edition of Imagine Science Film Festival in Abu Dhabi<\/a> this weekend, the collaborative crew of three, Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen and Janne Pulkkinen, who are also lifelong friends, provides a glimpse into nature\u2019s macroscopic expanses through moths.<\/p>\n

The dreamy images of vibrantly coloured, almost translucent and luminous insects were constructed using 3D X-ray tomography. This brainchild of Pohjankonna Oy was done in collaboration with the Finnish science centre Heureka<\/a>. Dozens of insect scans provided by the University of Helsinki, Finland, helped make the film\u2019s animated sequences possible.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A light technology crossover.<\/p><\/div>\n

In other projects, in collaboration with researchers from various institutions, such as Ghent University, they used computer generated imagery from numerous scans to create samples that they can virtually ‘move’ inside. The Centre for X-ray Tomography in Ghent has opened up some data archives for Vartiainen, Veikkolainen and Pulkkinen to explore, experiment with and develop their tools.<\/p>\n

The final product\u00a0is always\u00a0a paragon of film-making excellence\u00a0at the intersection of science, animation and art. But none of it\u00a0is interpretative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take something from the real world and try to visualise it as accurately as possible,\u201d says Veikkolainen. His colleague Vartiainen adds, \u201cIt\u2019s never 3D models that are based on the interpretation of the data, but always the real data.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s their third Imagine Science Film<\/a> experience \u2013 previously their work won the 7th Imagine Science Film Festival Visual Science Award in the festival\u2019s New York edition and the Scientific Merit Award in Abu Dhabi back in 2015. Their accolade this year, however, was the reactions of awe and wonder that their virtual reality (VR) engine \u2013 part of an installation at the festival\u2019s Spectrum art showcase \u2013 has garnered from the audience.<\/p>\n

This Nature Middle East<\/em> editor couldn\u2019t resist a dive (or two) into the immersive virtual world that Vartiainen, Veikkolainen and Pulkkinen have created: a journey into the gut of a 2mm fish, scaled up and visualised with impeccable detail. You can shine a light into this virtual model, carve out or slice through it, swap scales with the hit of a button to be able to move around it and observe it from the outside or walk through it on the inside, as you would in a dimly lit cave.<\/p>\n

Since the model is based on real-world data, even the smallest details are true to form; there are no imaginatively constructed visuals.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The VR installation drew a large audience at Imagine Science festival, Abu Dhabi.{credit}Nate Dorr \/ Imagine Science{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

The synergy between art and technology in this VR prototype is seamless; giving life to an organic sample that both scientists and the public can go deeper into, while keeping it real.<\/p>\n

Their method of visual construction is inspired, in part, by diagnostic tools already in use in the medical industry, but that lack the technology to control and manipulate the data, or\u00a0make it come to life. \u201cMedical visualization tools typically lack the sophisticated lighting and camera controls necessary for cinematic work,\u201d explains Pulkkinen.<\/p>\n

But the trio\u2019s unique tools give them precise studio-like control over lighting tomography data \u2013 the render engine makes use of video footage to cast \u2018animated light\u2019, for instance, adding layers of natural light, such as a timelapse of a moonlit night, to an otherwise static creature.<\/p>\n

The light helps bring out the shape of said creatures and samples, giving an extra layer of reality to these digital visualisations \u2013 so in the end, nothing is oversimplified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one film, \u201cThe Death of an Insect\u201d, three animators, filmmakers, and game creators turned science communicators have given a group of dead insects one last dance.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37911,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[281299,281301,281297,281303,281295,281293,281291],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-science-journalism","tag-3d","tag-ghent-university","tag-heureka","tag-imagine-science-film","tag-pohjankonna-oy","tag-university-of-helsinki","tag-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37911"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/houseofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}