World’s first website dedicated to 3D photo-sharing launches

Getting started in 3D photography has just got easier with the launch of Start3D.com, the world's first web site dedicated to sharing 3D photos online. Simply upload a pair of pictures and view them in amazing 3D. What's more, friends and family can now share the 3D experience without any glasses or equipment with the novel "Piku-Piku" viewer, developed by Academy Award winner and Start 3D founder Colin Davidson.

In October 2009, Fujifilm launched the world's first consumer 3D camera, the FinePix REAL 3D W1. Colin thought the 3D images viewed through the camera's special 3D screen were amazing, but he was frustrated that there was no easy way to see the 3D effect on his computer or to share the 3D effect with friends and family. So he decided to invent something.

As an expert in computer vision, with a doctorate from the University of Oxford, Colin had previously brought his expertise to George Lucas' visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, winning a Technical Oscar for his work on movies such as Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eragon and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. He realised that by combining computer vision with computer graphics, a 3D photograph could be transformed into a gentle animation that reveals depth on a 2D screen by exchanging one dimension of space for time. The result is the Piku-Piku viewer ("piku-piku" is Japanese for "twitching"). Users can interact with the viewer to control the point of view as if they were really there. Users who have coloured 3D glasses can also see the Piku-Piku in full 3D.

But you don't need a 3D camera, users with a normal digital camera can carefully take a pair of photographs of the same scene about eye-distance (3 inches) apart and upload them too. "It's almost as good - except for action shots," Colin says, "That's where the Fujifilm W1 really shines. Once you've experienced 3D photography, it's hard to go back to 2D." Colin intends Start 3D to become the "Flickr of 3D photo sharing" and is dreaming big. "By this time next year a 3D camera will be on everyone's Christmas wish-list," he predicts.

Visit Start3D.com to see the Piku-Piku viewer in action.