Ombrae™ - Sculptural Imaging with Optical Tiles
...seeing what you see ...
The Ombrae System is a method of changing the topology of a surface in a material to cause it to display a programmed image or pattern.
Like all digital processes, Ombrae uses pixels to form images. A pixel is a digital dot or point of light that through computer control generates a representation of the original source or input signal – the picture.
What makes Ombrae similar but different is the pixel. Ombrae creates the digital image using the pixilation principle, but does so by using a 3D pixel, what we call an Optical Tile™. This is unique, because the 3D pixel is a real object having length, breadth, and height. This means that when viewing an Ombrae image the viewer is really seeing the digital image as an object - actually thousands of objects - that are responding to the real influences of the time and place that it occupies… the light that is falling on the surface, and how and where the viewer is seeing it.
Said another way, the reproduced image looks 3D and seems even holographic because the pixels used to create the image are 3D. Each pixel is an individual object responding to its location in the image, the light falling on it, and the angle the viewer sees it from. When viewed collectively all of the pixels are creating the original image but under the influence of its location. Every viewer is actually seeing a slightly different image than any one else. The dynamic quality of an Ombrae image is a result of all of this.
Through image processing using computers and modern methods of CNC machining (Computer Numerical Control – digital machining) Ombrae creates a 3D photograph or Photoglyph™. The viewer moves, the light moves … the image changes.
*Ombrae – Latin derivative; many shadows.
