Object Movies

Used appropriately, object movies can be a useful addition to a web site or interactive application. For example, customers might examine potential purchases online before purchase or visitors might get up close to precious objects in a museum or as part of a virtual tour.

Object movies are usually more straightforward to create than panoramas in that the photographer is likely to have considerably greater control over shooting conditions. Most object movies, such as that of the Sugden Audio A21SE amplifier, are shot in the studio under carefully controlled lighting against a definable background with the added convenience of a computer close to hand to preview the end result.

The panoramic head (pictured right) is rotating in a single horizontal axis. However objects can be photographed in more than one axis permitting the creation of object movies which allow the user to rotate the object in all directions using on-screen controls. Such movies take considerably more time and expertise to create but can be very useful when users need to closely examine a 3-dimensional object, particularly if it is fragile or valuable.

The only specialist equipment required for ‘single row’ object movies is a turntable (I originally experimented using a cheap ‘lazy Susan’ from Ikea before buying a professional indexed turntable).

Studio flash (ideally with effective modelling lamps) is useful to ensure consistency of lighting during the time it takes to capture typically up to 36 consecutive images.

Image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop is necessary to clean up individual images and to ensure that they are in register. Specialist software is also required to combine the component photographs into the finished object movie and export them in an appropriate file format (typically Adobe Flash or Apple QuickTime).

A professional high resolution camera with full manual control is also essential – high image resolution facilitates the creation of object movies which allow the user to ‘zoom in’ on areas of interest with no loss in image quality (however such movies take longer to download online, even when using Adobe Flash). Manual control is essential to ensure that the object remains uniformly exposed in consecutive photographs.