SHADOW artists aim to wow their audience by arranging a seemingly random assortment of shapes which, when lit from the right angle, cast a recognisable silhouette. Now Niloy Mitra, a computer scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi has taken the concept further by creating objects which can cast three different shadows at once.
Working with of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Mitra has designed a computer algorithm capable of designing such objects. 鈥淚 am only aware of two to three art pieces that use multiple views,鈥� he says.
The example pictured shows a model that casts three shadows 鈥� a lion, griffin and (out of shot) an eagle. 鈥淭his is probably impossible to create manually,鈥� says Mitra.
Advertisement
The team begins by telling the computer the shapes of three shadows, with roughly similar dimensions, that they wish to create. There鈥檚 unlikely to be a single 3D shape that can exactly reproduce the three shadows, so the software subtly tweaks each shadow image until it鈥檚 possible to cast all three shadows from a single object.
鈥淓ach shadow image is tweaked until it鈥檚 possible to cast all three shadows from a single object鈥�
Mitra says it should be possible to use the same algorithm to design objects to cast even more simultaneous shadows. 鈥淓ach shadow imposes additional constraints, making the problem more challenging, but it鈥檚 definitely worth trying,鈥� he says.
Gallery: Triple shadows and fake reflections: Future graphics
