I saw this new site — Zooburst — somewhere or another, and given that my student teacher is right now doing pop-up poetry books, I was intrigued. The site is still in beta and they are only allowing new memberships on a vetted basis, I think, but you can make 3D pop-up books. Sounds strange, right?
There are are few levels going on here, including using your webcam and a special printout that allows you to view your picture book on your hand (!), but check out what I have embedded as an example of a picture book from the site — this is my first book called The Writer Within.
(Hmm – the embed code was too big and when I shrunk it down, I seem to have lost the controls to move to the next pages. There’s just a bit of the arrows on the left and right side. See them? Click on them. If not, go HERE to read the book).
But here is where the site is fascinating — if you print out the special image they provide (branded with their logo, of course), and hold it up to your webcam, you get to “see” your 3D book come alive in the webcam window. I’m not sure how to explain it. I was hooked, though. And ZooBurst wisely has a button that will take a screenshot of you and your book, together, and email it to you as a jpeg. How cool is that? Wicked cool, man.
Peace (in 3D),
Kevin
PS — If you are wondering how a teacher finds time during the day to do this, I am home with a sick kid. I tried to get him to try it, but he wasn’t all that interested right now. Too busy being a sick pre-teen, I guess. But he did come over when the webcam kicked in and stared at it with me.
NO WAY!!!