3D Properties Discovered with the VP-8 Image Analyzer
In 1976, research physicists John Jackson, Bill Moltern and Eric Jumper along with Kenneth Stevenson, Giles Charter, and Peter Shumacher, examined a photograph of the Shroud in the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer at the Sandia Scientific Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It had long been suspected that the image densities of images on the Shroud represented spatial information; that is, the lighter and darker tones of the images represented distance rather than traditional representations of light as highlights, lowlights and cast shadows.
The VP-8 Image Analyzer confirmed those suspicions. The photograph of the Shroud, unlike any regular photograph, drawing or painting, was dimensionally encoded."
A normal black and white photograph (or monochrome photograph of any single color) is an image of varying amounts of reflected light. Light colored surfaces approach white and dark surfaces tend towards black. The Shroud image, however, is a "graph" of proximity of the fabric to the body. Yet, at the same time, it acts like a photographic negative. Closeness appears darker (a dark straw yellow color) and distance is lighter. The tip of the nose is dark because it was close to or touching the linen at the time the image was formed. The recesses of the eyes, being farther away, are lighter. Some dark areas on the Shroud are not part of the image but actually blood stains. These are particularly noticeable on the forehead in the above picture. They act to distort the 3D projected image.
Barrie Schwortz () wrote:
It is a moment that would prove to be significant in Shroud history, since it catalyzed the interest of a diverse group of scientists that eventually would become the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). They ultimately would spend 120 hours performing the first in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud.
