Senior Project Pt. 1

For those who don't know, I've entered into my senior year (sort of) here at GCSU. I will be graduating in December of 2011. I will get a BA in Studio Art. For our senior capstone, we're required to take 2 classes consecutively, senior project and senior exhibition. Senior project is a prerequisite to senior exhibition and is what I am taking this semester.
Basically, I have to put together enough work on my own between this and next semester to have an exhibition of all of my own original work.

I have decided to work with 3-dimensional images and video to demonstrate and emphasize/exaggerate art as an experience.
So, bring on the technicalities: How does 3D imaging work? - How do we add depth to a flat or 2 dimensional surface?

Let's start from the beginning. How is it that we see in real life? and, what I'm interested in, how is it that we see depth? Fortunately, we've had some wise guys in the past do the work for us. We just have to read their words and look at their diagrams. "It is by the combination of two plane pictures of an object, as seen by each eye, that we see the object in relief, yet the relief is not obtained from the mere combination or superposition of the two dissimilar pictures. The superposition is effected by turning each eye upon the object, but the relief is given by the play of the optic axes in uniting, in rapid succession, similar points of the two pictures, and placing them, for the moment, at the distance from the observer of the point to which the axes converge." -David Brewster

Simple enough? :) Let's break that down. And for this post I am going to focus on the first sentence. We have 2 eyes. Each eye lets in light and "sees". The brain processes the image from the left eye as well as the image from the right eye and puts them together. This is where depth is obtained- since there is space between your eyes, each one has a different perspective. How do we know this? Common sense. Close your left eye, then close your right and eye and you will see 2 very similar but slightly altered images. Altered because they are observing from 2 separate angles (see diagram below).

Let's reference the sentence in bold to better explain how we see, though. "It is by the combination of two plane pictures of an object, as seen by each eye, that we see an object in relief". Relief here means an object's depth, distance from ourselves.

Okay, pulling it back together. We see by the combination(or superposition) of our right and left eye.
How do we use this concept to create 3D images or video? By the art of illusion.

 Replace the words "left eye" and "right eye" with "left camera" and "right camera" in this diagram. That's right- we take pictures/film with 2 cameras at the same time and spread them about the same distance apart as human eyes. Then, through various processes, allow the left eye to only see what the left camera filmed and allow the right eye to see only what the right camera filmed. It is mimicking how our vision works. Whenever we see both images put together, our brain processes the depth just as it does things in every day life.