Free Iris Textures!
Miles Research has developed a professional digital camera for precise imaging of the iris and sclera. To demonstrate the capabilities of their product, they offer a great collection of sample images at very high resolutions. The perfect solution if you need photo-realistic eye textures for your models!
Licensing info included.
(This resource was originally found by “Lord of the Rings Junkie”. The forum thread is here.)
I had the opportunity to speak with the Jon Miles, creator of the Miles Eye Camera that was used to take these types of award-winning iris photos. We spoke on the phone for about an hour and he’s very excited about the idea of creating a 3D movie of the human iris (more on that in a future article). Jon has been photographing and researching the iris for over 25 years so, there’s a lot of time and love that’s been devoted to this type of imagery.
Concerning the licensing of the sample images on his website:
As with any original work product, these photos are protected by US copyright laws. However, I am willing to offer permission for their use in computer graphics by prior request. Simply email me and let me know how you plan to use the images. I also have a CD available that contains 100’s of images ranging from 1 megapixel to 10 megapixels (cropped and uncropped).
Check out the samples, here.
hey this is great thanks for the tip Kernon!
Scaaaryy =D Thank you very much.
Good link.
But the four dots reflected on the eyes bothers me…
Rookie
Rookie, those are so incredibly easy to photoshop out, as they mostly fall in the pupil itself. even when it’s borderline, you can clone it out. the fact that the rest of the iris is reflectionless is pretty incredible. three thumbs up!
Yeah, the dots aren’t really a big deal. Just use a clone tool to paint them out. That’s what I did for the image in the article. It took less than 1 minute to do.
Wow! That’s a great resource! =D
Thanks a lot for sharing
Uh… I’m not certain that these images are “Free to use”
I don’t see anything on their site that implies or explicitly says so, either.
Can they be used in commercial productions?
I hope they also supply the name and birth date of the owners of the irises so one can use this pictures for really easy identity theft. If you don’t know: There are iris scanners in use which can be tricked by a printed version of the iris. There are also scanners that can’t be tricked, but how often is all the hardware a company buys replaced?
Other than that: cool.
Len van der Westhuizen got a pretty detailed shot of his own iris for his face model (showcased previously on BlenderNation). Basically all he did was snap a photo, look the other way, snap another photo, and just repeat, then just merge those photos in Photoshop. The end product was pretty awesome!
Sukhihotu.
Iris(-scanners)?
No, thank you. ;)
There is no indication whatsoever that these images are free for any purpose except as examples for the scanner results.
This is only an exciting find for me if they are going to give permission for their photos to be used for texturing. Without it, you are in breach of copyright law if you use them to produce anything at all. I will be emailing them to ask about the use of their photos for texturing, as they really are the most detailed eye shots I have seen online.
Perhaps a good idea Fire Angel, post back what they say if they respond.
I’m currently on the phone speaking with the creators of the images….
The article has been updated with the image creator’s licensing requirements.