3D Glasses To Help Better View Holy Shroud

TURIN, Italy, Apr. 12, 2010, 09:50 Hrs (SAR News):

A catechetical centre in Italy is promoting 3D vision technology to facilitate the viewing of the holy Shroud which is exposed from April 10.

Special two-filter glasses, just like the 3D glasses that hit movie theatres with the recent releases of “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland”, are set to make their way to the Turin Cathedral.

According to Bruno Fabbiani, an expert at Turin Polytechnic in holograph technology and printed images, the glasses will enable pilgrims to scrutinise details invisible to the naked eye.

“They allow a three-level perception, although only two filters are employed. Viewers can first detect the blood traces, then the body outline. Finally, there emerges a third image, which integrates the previous two,” Fabbiani says.

“It takes about 30 seconds for a visitor to get a grasp of the image on the displayed shroud,” says marketing director of Italy’s leading catechetical resources (books, audio & video material) publisher and distributor Elledici, Salesian Father Moreno Filipetto.

“With the special 3D glasses that we provide, a visitor can see the image in just five seconds, thus providing more time for the pilgrim to admire or venerate the Holy Shroud,” insists Father Filipetto, rejecting any accusation of “commercialisation.”

The glasses called HI-Rex-1 and HI-Rex-1L -- which are specially designed for nearsighted people -- costs 2 euros and 3 euros, respectively. They will be available in Turin bookshops and newspaper stalls along with a large poster of the Holy Shroud.

Holy Shroud back Ground
Shroud of Turin is the controversial piece of 14 X 4 foot linen that some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Scientific interest in the cloth began in 1898, when it was photographed by the lawyer Secondo Pia. The negatives revealed the image of a bearded man with pierced wrists and feet and a bloodstained head.

The cloth underwent carbon-14 dating in 1988. At that time, three reputable laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Ariz., concluded that the linen was a medieval fake dating from 1260 to 1390, and not the burial cloth wrapped around the body of Christ.

However, several shroud scholars, known as sindonologists, argued that no medieval forger could either have produced such an accurate fake or anticipated the invention of photography.

Speculation about the linen cloth, as well as debates over the validity of the carbon-14 tests, continues.

On the eve of the public display, debates have also arisen around the idea of a three-dimensional cloth.

“Experts in illumination have been engaged to ensure that pilgrims have the best view possible of the cloth and the image imprinted on it, which cannot be improved with artificial aids,” the commission said in a statement.

Kept rolled up in a silver casket, the Turin linen has survived several blazes since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a mysterious fire at Turin Cathedral in 1997.

Officials estimate that more than 2 million pilgrims will see the linen when it goes on display from April 10 to May 23.