Concordia's 3D innovation revolutionizes visual art

What happens when visual art comes into close contact with computer science? Stereoscopic magic.

Collaborative Research on Stereoscopic 3D Drawing

Concordia University’s Leila Sujir and Sudhir Mudur are bringing visual arts into new territories. With a generous grant from Consortium en innovation numérique du Québec and Mitacs, the two professors, along with Maria Lantin from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, are completing a year-long project to develop 3D drawing tools for a software system known as Sandde.

Audience members don 3D glasses to view "Chorus of Lungs," on display at Studio XX as part of the "Distance Between" exhibition. | Photo courtesy of Emily Pelstring, Janro Imaging Laboratory.

Sandde, short for “stereoscopic animation drawing device,” is a unique 3D animation software from the Montreal-based Janro Imaging Laboratory (JIL) that allows the animator artist to work intuitively by literally drawing in thin air. That action of free-hand 3D drawing was the research focus for Sujir, Mudur and Lantin, who are working with graduate students to create low-cost, high-performance motion-tracking solutions.
 
JIL, the maker of the software, is working closely with professors and graduate students in Concordia’s Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, as well as the Department of Studio Arts, to develop the user interface and hardware interface components of the software.

The researchers aim to bring Sandde to a point where it can potentially revolutionize video game design, performance art, and even Hollywood’s 3D feature animations. By facilitating the free movement of artists as they add 3D layers to their work, this research returns physicality to the process of digital content-creation.

Project finds showcase in 3D exhibition

The fruits of this labour can be seen on display at Montreal’s Studio XX gallery, located at 4001 Berri St., through June 5. The Distance Between is an inter-generational, all-female exhibition of 3D work that showcases a variety of creative approaches made possible using stereoscopic imaging tools like Sandde.

"Chorus of Lungs" was created by 3D Leila Sujir et Maria Lantin as a stereographic interactive video with Kinect for interaction. | Photo courtesy of Emily Pelstring, Janro Imaging Laboratory.

The show features Chorus of Lungs, an interactive 3D installation by Sujir, associate professor of Studio Arts, and Lantin, presently a visiting scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering and Hexagram Institute of Research Creation of Media Arts and Technologies.

The exhibition includes 3D work by Alison Loader (MA candidate, communication studies); Rebecca St. John, (animation student, Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema); and Emily Pelstring (MFA Studio Arts 09), who is also is the curator of the exhibition and vice-president of business development and marketing at JIL. 

Related links:
•    Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts
•    Concordia’s Department of Studio Arts
•    Concordia's Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering 
•    Janro Imaging Laboratory
•    Studio XX