Home Search Collections Journals About Contact us My IOPscience How to see shadows in 3D This content has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text. 2014 Phys. Educ. 49 314 (http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/49/3/314) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more Download details: IP Address: 176.9.124.142 This content was downloaded on 22/09/2014 at 12:55 Please note that terms and conditions apply. iopscience.org/ped How to see shadows in 3D Gea O F Parikesit Faculty of Engineering, Department of Engineering Physics, Gadjah Mada University, Jalan Grafika 2, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Shadows can be found easily everywhere around us, so that we rarely find it interesting to reflect on how they work. In order to raise curiosity among students on the optics of shadows, we can display the shadows in 3D, particularly using a stereoscopic set-up. In this paper we describe the optics of stereoscopic shadows using simple schematic drawings. We also describe how to build a very simple demonstration set-up for casting and displaying stereoscopic shadows. Moreover, we also describe a list of student activities that can be used to further raise their curiosity. Introduction Shadows can be found easily everywhere around us [1], so that we rarely reflect on the physics behind the phenomenon. In order to raise curiosity about the optics of shadows, we can display the shadows in three dimensions using a stereoscopic set-up. In this set-up, each of our two eyes gets a different view of the same shadow and our brain merges the two views to create a threedimensional image. Stereoscopic shadows can be realized experimentally using two pairs of colour filters, with one pair positioned in front of the light sources and another pair placed in viewing glasses. In ‘The optics of stereoscopic shadows’, we will first describe the optics of stereoscopic shadows using simple schematic drawings. Then, we will describe how to build a very simple set-up of stereoscopic shadows. Moreover, we will also describe a list of student activities that can be used to further raise their curiosity. The optics of stereoscopic shadows The history of people playing with shadows dates back to at least the second century BCE [2]. In order to play with shadows, we only need three 314 PHYSICS EDUCATION 49 (3) components: a light source, an object and a screen. The object can be made from various materials around us, even including our own hands. The UNESCO-listed Indonesian art of Wayang Kulit usually uses a set-up that consists of a light source using a halogen lamp or a coconut-oil lamp, an object crafted from buffalo skin and a screen that is made from a white cotton sheet [3]. Stereoscopic displays have become increasingly popular, both in consumer electronic markets and in technological applications [4]. A shadow can also be displayed stereoscopically, as has been performed by the artist and TED fellow Christine Marie, by using coloured shadows [5]. The phenomenon of coloured shadows was first documented by Goethe in 1810 [6], where he described how multiple shadows with various colours can be cast by using several coloured light sources simultaneously, such that different areas on the screen display shadows with different colours depending on how the object blocks light from the coloured light sources. Figure 1(a) shows how a pair of coloured shadows can be cast on a screen. In this example, two light sources, L1 and L2 , are equipped with red and cyan filters, respectively. An object is shown 0031-9120/14/030314+05$33.00 c 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd How to see shadows in 3D which result in less eye-crossing will be perceived as deep (i.e. further away from the viewer) [7]. It should be noted that this stereoscopic threedimensional display can only work properly under the condition that there is no cross-talk between the optical information received by the two eyes. A pair of red and cyan filters should work for this purpose because the spectral properties of these filters complement each other, i.e. no light coming through the red filter can pass the cyan filter and no light coming through the cyan filter can pass the red filter. It should be noted that the viewer can still see a proper three-dimensional shadow even when they move around. A curious student can verify this, both experimentally by using a real set-up and theoretically using simple schematic drawings. Figure 1. A schematic illustration of (a) how a pair of coloured shadows can be cast on a screen and (b) how these coloured shadows can be displayed as stereoscopic shadows. See the text for details. by its two edges, i.e. A and B. A shadow with three different colours will be cast on the screen S: a red shadow (in regions where the object blocks the cyan light), a black shadow (in regions where the object blocks both the red and cyan light) and a cyan shadow (in regions where the object blocks the red light). Figure 1(b) illustrates how these coloured shadows can be displayed as stereoscopic shadows. In this example, the viewer’s eyes E1 and E2 are filtered with red and cyan filters, respectively. Due to the red filter, the eye E1 will only perceive the black and cyan shadows, spanning between the points AL1 and BL1 ; it sees the red shadow simply as bright as the screen surface (i.e. no shadow). Meanwhile, due to the cyan filter, the eye E2 will only perceive the black and red shadows, spanning between the points AL2 and BL2 ; it sees the cyan shadow simply as bright as the screen surface (i.e. no shadow). This occurs such that the viewer will cross their eyes: the left eye will look at the right-hand side of the screen while the right eye will look at the left-hand side of the screen. The brain of the viewer then uses the information from the muscles that move the crossing eyes to create a three-dimensional image of the shadow: some parts of the shadow which result in more eye-crossing will be perceived as shallow (i.e. closer to the viewer) and other parts of the shadow May 2014 A simple set-up for stereoscopic shadows In this section we describe how to build a very simple set-up for stereoscopic shadows. Figures 2(a) and (b) show how we used a coloured light source made using a Panasonic BF-977 LED Lamp (Panasonic, Japan), which has three lamps in it, with the addition of red and cyan filters made from low-cost plastic sheets. Figure 2(c) shows an object, along with the resulting coloured shadows, cast on the wall behind the object. The characters on the right side (‘I’, ‘R’, ‘1’ and ‘0’) are positioned closer to the wall relative to the characters on the left side (‘A’, ‘J’, ‘S’, and ‘2’). Hence, when a red filter is positioned in front of the viewer’s left eye and a cyan filter is positioned in front of the viewer’s right eye, the coloured shadows of the characters on the left side and the right side result in higher and lower degrees of eye-crossing, respectively. This, in turn, results in the shadow of the characters on the left side being perceived as closer to the viewer relative to the shadow of the characters on the right side. We used the image processing software ImageJ1 to split the digital RGB image into the red, green and blue channels (see figures 2(d)–(f)), simulating how the shadows will be perceived when a viewer uses a red, a green or a blue filter, respectively. Because the cyan filter does not perfectly balance the weighting factors of the green and blue filters, the simulated shadow for the green filter does not perfectly match the simulated 1 www.rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/. PHYSICS EDUCATION 315 G O F Parikesit Figure 2. A coloured light source made from three lamps and two colour filters, (a) before and (b) after the filters were added. The resulting coloured shadows (c) of an object were cast on the wall, along with the simulated shadows seen with (d) a red filter, (e) a green filter and (f) a blue filter. shadow for the blue filter. However, the simulated shadow for the red filter is significantly different from the simulated shadows for the green and blue filters, indicating that we have minimal cross-talk between the red and cyan filters in our light source. In order to better display the shadows stereoscopically, we need to engineer the light source so that we will only obtain two coloured shadows (and no more than that). We therefore performed further experiments using two Lightspro LED Lamps (Lightspro, Indonesia) which had been equipped with light absorbers (to block unwanted parts in the light sources) as well as red and cyan filters. As shown in figure 3, this experiment results in only two shadows, which can then be viewed stereoscopically using a pair of glasses equipped with the corresponding colour filters. 316 PHYSICS EDUCATION Student activities The casting of coloured shadows and stereoscopic display of them can be a good way to raise students’ curiosity on the optics of shadows. However, we can further raise their curiosity by engaging them in more activities. Here, we describe two types of activities: mathematical analysis and conceptual investigations. Mathematical analysis of stereoscopic shadows can be performed by using the following questions. • Casting of coloured shadows: given the coordinates of L1 , L2 , A and B, can you determine the coordinates of the coloured shadows’ edges AL1 , AL2 , BL1 and BL2 ? (Hint: because light rays travel in straight May 2014 How to see shadows in 3D Figure 3. A better coloured light source, made using appropriate (a) light absorbers and (b) colour filters, results in (c) a pair of coloured shadows that can be viewed stereoscopically using glasses equipped with red and cyan filters positioned in front of the left and right eyes, respectively, such that the viewer crosses their eyes. lines, the line that connects A and L1 will arrive at AL1 ; the same holds for AL2 , BL1 and BL2 .) May 2014 • Display of stereoscopic shadows: given the coordinates E1 , E2 , AL1 , AL2 , BL1 and BL2 , can you determine the coordinates of the PHYSICS EDUCATION 317 G O F Parikesit stereoscopic shadow’s edges A0 and B0 ? (Hint: due to the viewer’s eye-crossing, the point A0 is formed by the intersection between the line that connects AL2 to E2 and the line that connects AL1 to E1 ; a similar method holds for finding the point B0 .) Conceptual investigations can be performed using the following questions. • Why do we find it more difficult to obtain stereoscopic shadows when we use non-point-like light sources? • Can we still obtain stereoscopic shadows when we swap the colours of the filters positioned in front of the two eyes? • What happens if the object’s dimensions are smaller than the distance between the two light sources? • Can we use filters of different colours (i.e. other than red and cyan)? While the first type of activity, which allows students to deepen their understanding on the observed stereoscopic shadows, is more suitable for high-school students, the second type of activity, which can be useful to foster critical thinking abilities among students, is probably more suitable for first-year undergraduate students. The conceptual investigations can be performed either theoretically using schematic drawings and mathematical analysis or experimentally using a real set-up of stereoscopic shadows. Conclusions We have described a method to raise students’ curiosity on how shadows work, particularly by casting coloured shadows and displaying them in 3D using a stereoscopic set-up. We have also suggested a way to build a very simple set-up of stereoscopic shadows, which is suitable for classroom demonstrations. Aiming to further raise the students’ curiosity, we have also included a list of 318 PHYSICS EDUCATION student activities, which comprise a mathematical analysis and a conceptual investigation. We foresee that our method will be able to attract more students to learn about how light works in general and how shadows work in particular. Received 12 February 2014, revised 12 March 2014, accepted for publication 14 March 2014 doi:10.1088/0031-9120/49/3/314 References [1] Lynch D K and Livingston W 2001 Color and Light in Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) [2] Chen F P 2003 Shadow theaters of the world Asian Folklore Studies vol 62 (Nagoya: Nanzan University) pp 25–64 [3] Foley K 2010 Dancing shadows, epic tales: wayang kulit of Indonesia (review) Asian Theatre J. 27 394–9 [4] McIntire J P, Havig P R and Geiselman E E 2014 Stereoscopic 3D displays and human performance: a comprehensive review Displays 35 18–26 [5] http://cimimarie.com/christinemarie/ Christine Marie.html, (accessed on 15 February 2014) [6] von Goethe J W 1810 Theory of Colors (London: John Murray) [7] Gregory R L 1964 Stereoscopic shadow-images Nature 203 1407–8 Gea O F Parikesit joined the Department of Engineering Physics at the Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia in 2009, following two years of post-doctoral research work on nano-particle image velocimetry at the Delft University of Technology. He obtained his degrees from the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands (PhD in Applied Physics with research work in the Quantitative Imaging research group; MSc in Applied Physics with research work in the Optics research group) and the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia (ST in Engineering Physics with research work in the Optics laboratory). His current research activities are centred on the field of optics education. May 2014
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