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Zoetrope Animations on Wheels

By Rain Noe - November 29, 2011

in Object Culture

An evil thought just occurred to me: What if the law mandated that all automobile rims be outfitted with zoetrope animations, calibrated to the diameter of their wheels, that held steady at 55 m.p.h.? And seemingly rotated forwards or backwards at faster or slower speeds, respectively? That way cops could tell if someone was exceeding the speed limit without using a radar gun.

I know, I know, the plan breaks down when you consider that in some states the speed limit is 65 and even 75 m.p.h., plus this would do nothing to tell you if someone was speeding in a 30 m.p.h. zone. I guess that's why I'm a blogger and not an evil scientist. Anyways, I got the idea from looking at UK-based designer/illustrator/animator/cyclist Katy Beveridge's project to get a zoetrope animation on her bicycle's wheels:

This is a piece created to question whether it was possible to film animation in realtime. Part of my [Central Saint Martins] 3rd year disseration project I was looking at proto animation (really early basic animation) in contemporary design. I've taken a lot of influence from other contemporary designers who are using these techniques to explore the way we look at animation and how its made....I have interviewed animators such as Jim le Fevre and in my research referenced other people using this technique such as David Wilson and Tim Wheatley who did this before me. I developed this project based on what is being done in animation right now as well as a lot of primary research into the history of animation techniques.

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Luke

12 years ago

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The problem with zoetropic animations is you need to have some way to pause between distinct frames, otherwise it's just a continuous blur and the illusion doesn't take hold. The effect you're seeing in the video wouldn't be visible in real life without a strobe light or something blocking out everything between frames.

Probably a bit difficult to implement in a way that would be visible to live viewers. Perhaps have the animation plate rotate forward and the slit plate backward. When they align, you have a frame, when they don't, you have a brief flash of translucency, and the transition between those two states would be unnoticeably brief. But the gear system necessary for that could get a bit messy.
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powers

12 years ago

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75! Yeah Tennessee!
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Alan Parekh

12 years ago

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That would look great on a car.
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