The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Movie Cube

Custom software converts a digital video sequence into a three-dimensional dataset, termed a movie-cube, by extracting and ordering each frame of the sequence along the Z axis. Once in this form, a variety of techniques commonly used in scientific visualization can be used to show multiple perspectives, allowing analysis of image-based, time-based media that is unattainable in traditional methodologies. A custom visualization system is used to render and examine the dataset as shown in the animation by first animating a slice plane along the Z axis representing time within the video sequence. As expected, such movement within the movie-cube reveals the original movie sequence. Experimenting with different orientations of the slice plane, however, reveals unique and interesting patterns showing various aspects of the time-based data within a single spatial representation. Note, for example, how such visualizations provide a clear representation of cinematic elements such as camera shots, angles and movements.