I was watching the star destroyer flythrough and noticed these odd symbols all over the corridors.
What are they?
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24Directions to the bathroom?– lfuriniCommented Apr 24, 2023 at 9:57
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Looks like there's text or numbers below the symbols on each sheet of paper. I could make out "1498" or maybe "1495" on one in the video but someone with a better screen might be able to see more. I wonder if they're identifiers for props or panels that hadn't been installed yet when they filmed the flythrough.– WithadCommented Apr 24, 2023 at 10:47
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6They look a lot like the data ports that R2D2 used: shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/12/star-wars-and-standards– JRECommented Apr 24, 2023 at 11:07
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2Hello! What is the source? When you say "the star destroyer flythrough", is it related to these series? Vehicle Flythroughs 2021 Disney+ Series– StefCommented Apr 25, 2023 at 8:47
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1@Stef yes, that is where I saw them– BurgiCommented Apr 25, 2023 at 10:31
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1 Answer
3D Photogrammetry markers
At first I thought these were Scomp Link symbols, indicating the presence of a computer access port, but thought it was a bit odd that they were on blast doors and on the floor. I tried doing a reverse image search for one of the symbols from the screenshot:
That led me to a site selling nearly identical symbols for use in photogrammetry:
I don't have a background in visual effects, but it appears these are used as reference markers when filming or photographing 3D spaces so the location can more easily be recreated as a 3D model. Assuming this flythrough was made using the set used for one of the films, it makes sense that these markers would be put up everywhere for use by the visual effects teams.
I haven't seen anything like these in-universe, so it can probably be assumed these are part of the set, and aren't meant to have any diegetic presence.
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35It’s worth noting that these encode information. The bit just inside the outer ring is functionally a 1D barcode wrapped into a circle. The outer ring and inner dot allow for parallax correction and the ‘notch’ in the outer ring provides orientation data (just like the three corner boxes and the alignment grid in a QR code), which together allow that barcode to be reliably read regardless of orientation relative to the camera. Commented Apr 24, 2023 at 18:08
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5They're stage directions!– user15742Commented Apr 24, 2023 at 23:33
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Do these appear in the films? Or only in behind-the-scenes footage? I'd have to go back and re-watch to look for them. There's a lot of greeble on these sets, so they'd be easily ignorable in the background... Commented Apr 27, 2023 at 13:26