Thursday, August 4, 2011

Visual experiences of 3d: helicopter tour

The amusing thing is, it was boring. One can only wonder how Liberty Helicopters managed to make a helicopter tour in New York City that feels boring to a grown-up person with a week of experience of seeing in 3d. I walked into their building without noticing the security person who was supposed to screen me, even though now I am noticing a lot of things around me. Overall, they talked a lot about "safety first", which makes sense, and tried to make the whole process as smooth and as quick as possible, with little concern for the process itself. The headphones that they gave to wear in the helicopter were very tight and severely restricted the blood flow to the head, even though I was constantly holding them with my hands. Oh, and we didn't really fly anywhere, just basically up and down. I guess, people rarely retake a helicopter tour anyway, so it doesn't matter, what the experience is like.

However, my visual system learned anyway. As I was walking into the subway, I was feeling how the 3-dimensionality of the world got easier to support, as if the environment freed some internal tension in it. Things were above did not have to work so hard to be above, but were just lightly suspended.

The actual helicopters look like helicopter toys. These helicopters are small, only for about 8 people, but also they really look like toys. The structure is so obvious. When they are standing on the field, each one is standing in the middle of its circle, and you can feel how the helicopter is energetically connected to its circle. I could also discern the rotation of the helicopter rotor, as opposed to merely seeing a trembling disk.

I also realized how the pilot can use the "optic flow" of the environment to sense the direction and the speed of the helicopter by perceiving the movement of other objects.

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