New Life for an Enduring Eye Con

Most people remember it as the winking eye, the quirky Cracker Jack toy or the political button that magically morphs between a candidate’s face and name. But advertisers and marketers--even artists who’d dismissed it as equal to Elvis portraits on black velvet--are taking another look at the technology that seems to capture time and motion.

Shoppers walking past Victoria’s Secret stores over the summer were surprised when a lingerie model in the display window unexpectedly shifted to a different pose. The cover of a new Sega Dreamcast video game shows heroine Ulala high-kicking her way through a chorus line of Morolian invaders.

But this renaissance in lenticular--the technical name for the graphic arts process--involves more than marketing. Soon, travelers on the moving sidewalk in the international terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport will be entertained by an intricate, 38-panel installation that will deliver a string of three-second vignettes. And artists are charging thousands of dollars for lenticular pieces.

The generation gap also is playing a role. “It’s gone through cycles,” said New Yorker Frank Didik, who owns 26,000 Cracker Jack toys, postcards, political buttons and other examples of lenticulars. “It was the big thing during the late 1940s, and in the ‘60s it exploded again. And now it’s in another up cycle.”

Enthusiasts acknowledge that their small part of the graphic arts world isn’t well-understood. “For 100 years, this has been the technology of tomorrow,” quipped R. Anthony Munn, a New York artist, businessman and one of the industry’s numerous self-appointed historians. “How many other technologies can say that?”

The latest chapter of the lenticular story is being driven by digital advances that are reshaping how images are collected, stored and displayed.

Lenticular companies long have used special cameras to gather images that, in a labor-intensive process, are carefully interlaced under a specially formed lens to create illusions of movement and dimension. Powerful computer software and state-of-the-art inkjet printers are making it easier to fashion increasingly complex illusions. Just as important, the new technology is pushing down prices.

“Up until now, nobody has made any money in this business,” said Bill Grove, who is drumming up lenticular business for Quad Graphics, a $1.5-billion printing company in New Berlin, Wis. “For most people, it’s been a hobby. It’s still a very small portion of our business, but if we can turn a corner and really get people interested in lenticular, you’ll see it grow considerably.”

The bright future is built upon a past filled with false starts and dead ends. The lenticular industry long has remained in the shadow of a single-minded inventor who carefully safeguarded his proprietary technology. The business also has attracted many operators who’ve lacked the technical know-how and financial skills needed to succeed.

“This is a field that’s been full of frauds and crackpots,” said Thomas Brigham, a lenticular enthusiast who won an award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for developing “morphing” technology used in such movies as “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” “It’s a tricky, convoluted story to tell because of the personalities involved.”

The modern lenticular industry was dominated by Victor Anderson, now in his 90s and reportedly in ill health. During the 1940s, Anderson’s Vari-Vue Co. used complex cameras, proprietary production processes and the company’s own lenses to flood the world with images that seemed to capture depth and motion. Didik, who purchased a part of Vari-Vue’s assets, said the firm’s archives included more than 26,000 different images.

Best known for political buttons and Cracker Jack toys, Vari-Vue also produced “everything from decoder rings the size of a child’s finger to full-size billboards for a cereal company,” said Thomas Mark, a Nevada businessman who met Anderson and his wife, Kay, during the 1970s.

Victor Anderson demanded that licensees pay hefty premiums for access to special cameras and plastics used to create images. Kay Anderson took over management of Vari-Vue when the couple divorced, and after her death, Vari-Vue’s holdings eventually were sold.

In Vari-Vue’s wake, a string of graphic artists, printers and camera buffs have tried to advance the technology. Duluth, Ga.-based I3dx, for example, now produces state-of-the-art processes used to create lenticular displays. Microlens Inc. of Mathews, N.C., is credited with working to perfect lenticular lens production.

Lenticular also has benefited from such zealous proponents as Mark, who created a small company that gives away lenticular software. Brigham, for example, learned of the technology when Mark sent him--unsolicited--packages containing lenticular software and lenses. “He’s something like the Johnny Appleseed or the fairy godfather of this industry,” Brigham said.

Unfortunately, the technology’s image was sullied over the decades by others who “screwed up,” said Brigham, a technical consultant for the JFK Airport project. “They kept throwing money at it, but it was largely a legacy of failure.”

Lenticular also has had to struggle to shed its reputation as the toy in the Cracker Jack box. “That was the greatest sin because it’s forever been known as the toy or the gimmick,” Munn said. “Nobody has ever pulled [the toy] out and realized what a great tour de force this technology is.”

Advertisers and marketers are drawn to lenticular technology because--unlike conventional four-color ads that typically end up in the trash--lenticulars usually land on the coffee table or are taped to the refrigerator. “Even if it’s just [a few frames of action] people will sit there mesmerized--in part because you’re controlling the action,” said Greg Schuman, a partner with Los Angeles-based World Holographics.

Big companies, though, have been slow to incorporate lenticular displays into their ad budgets because the technology remains complicated and production snafus are common. “It’s a very time-consuming process,” said Don Metcalf, owner of Production/Photo Graphics in Hawthorne, which produced 2,700 store displays for Victoria’s Secret. “You have to work backward--visualizing the end product, then using the processes to create the necessary technical parameters.”

“There’s always been a huge potential associated with lenticulars,” said John Butler, marketing manager for Kingsport, Tenn.-based Eastman Chemical Co., which sells plastic pellets used to make lenticular lenses. “But it’s always been a very fragmented market with lots of small players.”

Eastman Kodak Co. hopes it will be the big company with the weight needed to boost lenticular sales. Kodak has spent heavily in recent decades to perfect a photo-based version of lenticular technology. Competitors maintain that Kodak’s dynamic imaging technology--which the company says will produce everything from key-chain art to bus-stop posters--is too expensive for widespread use.

No one, though, disputes the stunning pieces Kodak’s process creates. A promotional piece for the film “M: I-2” shows a pair of sunglasses exploding as it’s tossed into the air by actor Tom Cruise. A credit-card-sized display gives consumers an intricate tour of Chrysler Corp.’s snazzy PT Cruiser--with doors that open and close and seats that pop up and down.

California is well-represented in the evolving lenticular industry. Kodak recently moved its lenticular headquarters to Los Angeles, hoping to tap into Hollywood’s powerful marketing machine.

World Holographics, which has shifted from holograms to lenticulars--produced the Sega lenticular. Fresno-based Big3D.com has produced lenticulars for Wells Fargo Bank that show the company’s trademark stagecoach in motion. Z Cubed of San Pedro is marketing a restaurant display that can magically reproduce 3-D images of, say, a hamburger, a slice of pizza, a hot dog and a soft drink.

Pricing remains a potential barrier for advertisers and marketers. Sega, for example, spent $286 per 1,000 units to produce the Space Channel 5 lenticular, notably more than the $25-per-thousand cost of producing a traditional four-color cover.

Robert Schonfisch, director of creative services for Sega of America, said the added expense is justified because the cover will draw shoppers’ eyes as they walk down crowded store aisles. Sega also is betting that it will get “pass-around, pass-along value” from gamers who share the lenticular art with friends.

When lenticular displays are done right, they work. It’s not uncommon to see passersbys do what fans call the “lenticular dance” when they pass, say, the ESPN Store in New York’s Times Square. “You watch people walk past, then back up, then go forward again” as they interact with lenticulars installed near the store’s entrance, Munn said.

Champs Sports reports that store traffic rose earlier this year when the company installed lenticulars in its windows. Customers continue to call Neiman Marcus for copies of the 1999 holiday catalog with a cover that showed a Christmas tree decorated with moving butterflies. Old Navy once filled a showroom window at a San Francisco store with a billboard-sized lenticular.

Artists will need time to master lenticular technology, said Bonnie Lhotka of Denver, who has traded acrylic paints for computers and inkjet printers. “Creative people are right-brained. They’re used to pushing paint around, but for lenticular art, you also need the left-brain skills to figure out the math needed to create images.”

Some purists maintain that software and inkjet printers can’t match what Vari-Vue produced using its proprietary technology. Mark, whose Flipsigns.com makes lenticular software, acknowledges that many newcomers struggle to master techniques that Vari-Vue developed decades ago. “Victor Anderson was the innovator; he had a terrific technology for his time,” Mark said. “So much of what he did was accomplished purely by his willpower.”

But Mark argues that digital technology is welcome because it is introducing lenticular to a broader audience. “It’s all about magic and illusions,” Mark said. “It’s the same thing as the magician who saws the woman in half. It’s a wonderful illusion. And we want everyone to be able to be in the illusion business.”

Brigham, who clearly relishes the digital magic that Hollywood uses to create illusions, ties lenticular’s continuing appeal to an inherently interactive nature. “It’s something you can hold in your hands, rather than in a computer disc. Even with the simplest flip--when an element appears and disappears--you wonder: How did it go from here to there?”

Instant Replay

To see a short video of a lenticular in action, go to

https://www.latimes.com/lenticular.

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Look Online

Google.com lists nearly 23,000 hits for “lenticular.” Some of the sites:

* https://www.microlens.com (lens supplier)

* https://www.flipsigns.com (software manufacturer)

* https://www.didik.com (Vari-Vue information)

* https://www.depthography.com (lenticular, 3-D design firm)

* https://www.i3dx.com/perscameras.html (lenticular technology)

* https://www.stereoscopy.com/cameras (overall information)

* https://www.digitalatelier.com (Bonnie Lhotka’s lenticular artwork)

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Simulating Motion

Lenticular prints, which show different pictures when turned at various angles, are gaining new uses in the computer age as more and more images can be morphed together into complex animated sequences. The new possibilities are attracting everyone from advertisers to artists. Here is how a simple lenticular is created: