What are the circumstances in which video mapping appears?

Digital technology

Even if we rely on a relatively limited definition of video mapping, i.e. that it consists in the design of animated images according to the volumes and depth of the object medium onto which they will be projected, we cannot state that this practice depended absolutely on the prior existence of such and such a software program, nor even the advent of digital technology. In fact, video mapping lies at the intersection of three technological paradigms, which emerge in its ancient prehistory (its stone age): anamorphosis, light projection and image animation. Anamorphosis, the theory of which was developed in the 1630s, is a geometric operation which can be carried out by hand, with the right measuring equipment; light projection only ever needs one projector — of which the magic lantern, which appears around 1650, is the prototype — and the techniques of animating images — especially projected images — have existed since the 19th century.

On the other hand, we can be certain that, at the start of the 2000s, digital technology (the ever more common use of computers, the level of development of computer processing and image dissemination tools and the arrival of the digital projector) facilitated the convergence of these three age-old technological paradigms (animation, projection and anamorphosis) and, therefore, the emergence of video mapping. The 1990s saw the launch of software, whether commercial or free, CAD (the free Blender software comes out in 1998), audiovisual editing and animation (After Effect, marketed by Adobe in 1995, will integrate 3D in 2001) and real-time programming for multimedia creation (the first version of Pure Data comes out in 1996, while Resolume VJing software, designed in the Netherlands, is released in 2001). In parallel, the end of the 20th century saw the emergence of digital video projection, followed by the development, by Texas Instruments, of DLP technology — which will become a benchmark for cinematographic projection. Whatever the basic technology (DLP, LCD, etc.) and the power and quality of its definition, digital video projection will enable the projection of natively digital images without converting them to an analogue medium, which is crucial for the rise of video mapping.

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