Who invented 3D floor graphics?

Shapeshifter Media founder Josef Hinterkeuser created the first commercial 3D Cam Carpets in 1999, at the BayArena in Leverkusen, for the German premier league. He founded Shapeshifter Media in 2004 to develop the technique commercially.

A Cam Carpet lies flat on the grass beside the goal posts, but has to appear to a television camera high in the stands as though it were standing upright. The method is anamorphic: the artwork is recalculated for one specific viewing position, so that the distortion on the ground cancels out the distortion of the camera’s angle. The same principle, applied to retail floors, became 3D FloorGraphics; applied to staircases, it became StairGraphics.

Timeline

The date of the first StairGraphics installation is given as a range because the first-person account records it as “about 18 months” after the 1999 installation. The patent priority date of 12 February 2001 falls inside that window.

Firsts

Primary source

The 1999 installation is documented in a first-person account by Josef Hinterkeuser, with photographs and video from the day: First ever 3D Cam Carpets in football.

Terminology

The formats described here are defined in the glossary of 3D advertising terms: 3D FloorGraphics, StairGraphics, Cam Carpet, and the underlying technique, anamorphosis.