ABSTRACT
3D imaging is a niche activity that literally gives another dimension to our flat astro photographs. Motivated by the inspiring 2-D and 3-D astro art on J-P Metsävainio’s AstroAnarchy web site, for me, 3-D imaging can use virtually any regular 2-D image. Once acquired and processed with the normal plethora of tools and methods at our disposal, a compositing program transforms the 2-D into a 3-D diorama within the computer, such that a software camera can move through the space to create an animation. It is worth a little effort to make the 3-D model as faithful as possible, to appreciate the structure of the space. After first using Adobe After Effects®, I switched to an alternative application from Blackmagic Design, called Fusion 8®. It has a unique nodal graphical interface to composit-ing which is both interesting and fun to use and very powerful. For instance, Fusion 8 allows one to deform the image planes in 3-D, which allows more engaging 3-D animations. What follows is my current workflow, which uses a mixture of PixInsight, Photoshop, Microsoft Excel and Fusion 8:
establish object distances in the 2-D image
isolate the objects into layers according to distance
prepare the image in Fusion 8
position layers along the z-axis according to distance
scale each layer according to distance
add a camera
create a camera path
render and save the animation
