McLaren Photographic LLC

McLaren Photographic has partnered with the TMA

fmclaren — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 23:54:50 +0000

McLaren Photographic has been asked to join the TMA as a partner in the development of visual content for marketing, education and publicity purposes. In this interview with new TMA board member, Aaron Wiegel, President – Wiegel Tool Works about his vision for the Tooling & Manufacturing Association. He is a partner at Wiegel Tool Works with his sister Erica Wiegel and brother Ryan Wiegel and have assumed operation of the business from their father Martin Wiegel. Photographs and videos were taken on March 23rd, 2013 at the 87th TMA Banquet held at the Butterfield Country Club, Oak Park Illinois.
We feel very strongly about supporting manufacturing in the Chicago area by actively promoting our strengths – automation, technology and people. Through good visual content, we hope to encourage the growth of a skilled workforce, more investment and greater prosperity. [FM 4-1-13]

Raytrix App for Android Tablet and Smartphone

fmclaren — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:17:38 +0000

I downloaded the app and can view the 3D images online. They are not “attractive” in the aesthetic sense of photography. They remind me of the software glitches you see in the older RPG video games when an object is not fully rendered. Video by Raytrix shows how the camera technology works.

Raytrix Lightfield Cameras for Industrial and Scientific Applications

fmclaren — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:29:04 +0000

Raytrix is a German company that developed “The First Plenoptic Camera on the Market” that focuses in industrial and scientific applications for its 3D light field technology. There are 3 cameras available that have varying effective resolution (and pricing) ranging from 1 megapixel for the R5 and up to 7.25 megapixels for the R29. The RX – Individual 3D Camera – is actually a retrofit service that can modify a regular digital camera to become a 4D lightfield camera and includes software for post-processing.

Applications for this new technology include

Quality Inspection
Microscopy
Research & Development
3D Facial Recognition
Security Monitoring
Traffic Control
3D TV & Video Production
Professional Photography

An example of a 3D photograph, see the work by Martin Haeusler who shoots “Autostereo 3D” using his proprietary software and lightfield technology.FM [3-20-13]

Lytro – McLaren Photographic “Gallery of Springs”

fmclaren — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:19:27 +0000

http://pictures.lytro.com/www.mclarenphotographic.com

WE LOVE SPRINGS – and we are using the Lytro and the Light Field Technology to find better ways of showing them off. Go to our Lytro Gallery to try the focus shift by clicking on different parts of the image.

Women in Manufacturing

fmclaren — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:11:20 +0000

Manufacturing: How Women Can Help Spark a Troubled Industry

The stigma of working in a factory and the lack of adequate training has led to this employment crisis. Highly technical jobs require training but we spend too many resources on degrees in humanities. If there was more scholarship funding available and colleges that offered technical training courses, you would attract workers of both genders.

Quality Assurance Technician

Lytro – Light Field Digital Camera Technology

fmclaren — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:13:40 +0000

McLaren Photographic has been considering the commercial applications of the new Lytro Light Field Camera. Although still in its infancy, we tried it out with some of the exhibitors at the CASMI Trade Show in Chicago last October. At this point, other than as an image novelty, most saw little practical application for their advertising purposes. Despite all the fanfare since its launch at the CES in 2012, it is still somewhat of a gimmick. See some of our springs at www.Lytro.com. FM January 15, 2013

Instagram – Just a Fad?

fmclaren — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:02:09 +0000

Is Instagram just a gimmick? For industry and manufacturing we have yet to see a practical application for the app other than for like-minded Insta-groupies to share their vacation pics with their friends and colleagues (or their feet, their reflections or their food!!) For BTC companies like Sharpie, Instagram has proven to be a great tool for customer engagement. But since the app “artifies” the images with its hipster filters, the images of parts, assembly or manufacturing process would not benefit. General Electric has an Instagram site with over 134,000 followers and they actually had a contest to hire an Instagram Photographer. How did we miss that? We would love to know how and if any industrial manufacturers use Instagram for their marketing program. Let us know…