May 22, 2008 3

slit-scanning

By in processing


jelly deli from julaps on Vimeo.

over the last couple weeks I’ve been experimenting with slit-scanning, a technique which works on exposing different times of a video in the one frame, making it possible to glimpse into the past and future of the video. the above is an audio reactive piece ive built in processing where the video becomes temporally distorted by the audio. i didn’t want to get carried away ( as i often do ) so i limited the effects only to slit-scanning.


decomposing time from julaps on Vimeo.

in this sketch time moves across in a sine wave, exposing the past and present of the video in a smooth, undulating motion. the original video is of a mushroom decomposing, slowly decaying over time. by applying the temporal distortion the mushroom looks more like it is being blown away by an explosion of sorts. i can see many ways this technique could be used to create special effects in video, first by recording a time-lapse of something growing, expanding, decaying, disappearing etc, and then applying some form of time distortion to create the final effect.

here is the source for this sketch, its all pretty straight forward but churns out some nice results.
please note, you have set maximum available memory to 1024 in processing -> preferences.


temporal vortex from julaps on Vimeo.

the technique can be extended to change the video image on a per pixel basis. the temporal vortex sketch creates a hole in the video which allows to see into the future as it pours out into the present. there really is no limit on the types of distortion and final output you can create.

flong writes a great paper on the history of the technique.

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3 Responses to “slit-scanning”

  1. Toni Vlad says:

    Hello,
    I am pretty amazed by what you did here, i toyed with processing a bit but never got around to try it’s movie playing capacities.
    Would you be willing to share the code to the first movie ? i would love to use movies in my audioreactive sketches.
    You have my email, i’ll be waiting for a sign from you.

  2. [...] interactive graffiti wall that allowed to expose the different layers that went into the painting. http://www.julapy.com/blog/2008/05/22/slit-scanning/ [...]

  3. Docomo says:

    Hi there,

    Thanks very much for the temporal wave sketch, and for all the other sketches you’ve generously shared on this site.

    Did you ever release the code for the audio reactive slitscan piece featured above? I would love to tinker with this!

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