Eadweard Muybridge, zoetrope (zoopraxiscope) and ... Google?

Starting the Arduino Stroboscope, one of my recent projects, I had no idea the ancient technique could still have such universal appeal in the age of full-length 3D animated movies. It was a rather pleasant surprise to see Google celebrating today (04-09-2012) the birthday of Eadweard Muybridge, the stop-motion photography pioneer, with a special animated (obviously) doodle. The static snapshot of the doodle does it little justice, you need to head over to Google and click that “play” button in the middle to see the iconic galloping horse animation play out. Well, OK, trotting – I’m not much of an equestrian :).
There’s just something hypnotic in those looped images, never mind them being so primitive compared to frames from a modern 3D animation. I can certainly appreciate the appeal having played with my own zoetrope for quite a while now:

I’m actually planning to revisit the project at some point in the future to have one built on smaller and cheaper components. Having played with ATTiny13 recently, I can see that the little chip should be able to drive a BLDC-based zoetrope with no problem at all.

Till next time then!