Hello,
Superficially, the encoding reminds me of what I saw on paper tape in the late 1970's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape
The following shows a paper tape punch in action. Sorry, I don't have audio on the computer I am currently attached to, so I don't know what the video says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QwkLPg-mY0
However, there is only a rough similarity because there are only 5 planes as far as I can tell.
Wolfgang