A fascinating view into the cameras and technology used in Avatar. The new technology included a virtual camera that lets you physically shoot a virtual scene, augmented reality that overlays live footage with CGI backgrounds, face-scanning cameras, and a combination 2D/3D camera.
Another innovation was adding imperfections (camera movements, lens flares) to make a “perfect” virtual world more believable.
Really interesting to think about what this technology might do when released to the world in a few years…
Update: i09 has a bunch of great interviews with designers who worked on Avatar: [part 1](http://io9.com/5420143/5-designers-reveal-secrets-of-james-camerons-avatar), [part 2](http://io9.com/5444960/avatars-designers-speak-floating-mountains-amp-suits-and-the-dragon), [part 3](http://io9.com/5460957/the-complete-history-of-pandora-according-to-avatars-designers)
“Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams–daydreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing–are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster, civilization.” – [L. Frank Baum](http://www.iwise.com/gAHxh)
The Power of 8 is a set of concept videos, fake products, landscape designs, architectural plans and stories that combine to show what a future where technology brings people together might look like. Really well done and unique.
“So you’d think that, to a first approximation, the Earth is inhabitable by human beings…In fact, to a first approximation, from the perspective of prospective interstellar colonists, the Earth is uninhabitable…Currently, a random meat probe dropped on the Earth’s surface has something like a 15% chance of finding it survivable. But a random sampling over the historical epoch would return a survivability probability of around 1%.” – Charlie Stross