Slashdot Mirror

two layers? ha! i think this display has more promise

Hello - there's a company in NYC and the Boston area actually designing quantum encryption technology for eventual products. They have a team of heavy-hitters in the quantum information world. They're called MagiQ Technologies, Inc.

I know their CEO, and it sounds like they're doing very promising work. They've been pretty quiet about their stuff, but think that it's an example of the real-world applications of this type of technology.

Gregg Favalora - CTO, Actuality Systems, Inc. - The 3-D Display Guys

Actuality Systems, from what I can tell, displays 3D images by rotating a screen around very fast and then displaying different slices of an image onto that screen. I believe it gives you a "truer" 3D display, at the drawback of having to view it inside a big glass sphere.

ActualDepth appears to be using the hi-tech equivalent of those 3D images you see on the front of children's books sometimes. I'm guessing they're going after the consumer market, while Actuality Systems is probably going after industries.

---

http://www.actuality-systems.com/images/

Of course, this is all just wild conjecture, shots in the dark. But it is probably close to the truth.

For those of you wondering just how the heck this thing works - it uses a (really fast) conventional 2-D projector and a very complex array of lenses and mirrors to project a constantly changing image onto a 2-dimensional translucent screen that rotates at 600 rpm. By changing the image as the screen rotates, the illusion of a 3-D object is created.

More technical info (with pictures) can be found here and a shot of the screen while it's not moving can be seen here.

For those of you wondering just how the heck this thing works - it uses a (really fast) conventional 2-D projector and a very complex array of lenses and mirrors to project a constantly changing image onto a 2-dimensional translucent screen that rotates at 600 rpm. By changing the image as the screen rotates, the illusion of a 3-D object is created.

More technical info (with pictures) can be found here and a shot of the screen while it's not moving can be seen here.

It's interesting that they made such a big announcement that their product actually works.. ;)

It's even funnier to see what their 2D Test Pattern is. ;)

That will be nice when they actually get it out and there are a few advances in memory. Unfortunately, it will probably not have the cool sort of holographic effects that they had in Star Wars and Star Trek.

But I bet that the folks who do military-grade radars will love it. Imagine being able to view the exact 3D position of an aircraft instead of just looking at the overhead view.

It's just odd to see that they are using SCSI to do the interfacing. SCSI's a lot slower than the AGP port, and you are transfering several hundered times the data.. ;)

This is actually wrong. See below. The only see-through problem I can think of is seeing all the way to the other side of an object; with the way it seems to be constructed, it looks like the mirrors being in the center may fix this problem? IANAE, but that is what I understand from the white paper.

Also, keep in mind that they don't really have any working prototype yet, so they couldn't demonstrate it.

3. Proprietary algorithms and interface software Actuality Systems places considerable effort into inventing, testing, and optimizing high-speed and high-precision algorithms for fundamental tasks, such as:

• Line drawing
• Triangle drawing
• Hidden-surface removal
• [emphasis added]

(http://www.actuality-sys tem s.com/product_howitworks.htm)

A quick search on IBM's Patent Database reveals reveals that The navy has some patents regarding 3D volumetric displays already and also shows the tech details behind the volumetric display used by these guys (One of the founders has patented the mechanism used)

...that's about a 600x600x250 pixel display...

Um, not quite. It's actually a radial coordinate system, with a diametric resolution of 768 pixels. Check out this link for more info.

Geeks! This is just too cool! :-)

John

will provide the highest resolution volumetric 3-D imagery in the world. Multicolored images, comprised of over 90 million 3-D pixels called "voxels," will seem to float within its transparent viewing dome. And I thought the Chess game was originally on WestWorld. There's also a concept graphic of the display dome on the company's homepage.

Biological (neural) systems have properties sometimes desirable electronically, such as robustness and insensitivity to noisy data. Indeed, Caltech's Carver Mead (if he's still there) went a long way to popularize biologically-inspired engineering, or "neuromorphic engineering." His book Analog VLSI and Neural Systems is the usual text, mixing VLSI design and mimicry of, say, the retina.

The original Nature article should be readable to those clued in on MOS circuitry and a bit of neuroscience. I think it's wonderful that Nature is willing to post their material for free online, esp. in PDF...

For those of you itching to learn more about the brain & neuromorphic engineering, I set up a page of links to related books.

All best,

Gregg Favalora, CTO, Actuality Systems, Inc.

Developing autostereoscopic volumetric 3-D displays.

Biological (neural) systems have properties sometimes desirable electronically, such as robustness and insensitivity to noisy data. Indeed, Caltech's Carver Mead (if he's still there) went a long way to popularize biologically-inspired engineering, or "neuromorphic engineering." His book Analog VLSI and Neural Systems is the usual text, mixing VLSI design and mimicry of, say, the retina.

The original Nature article should be readable to those clued in on MOS circuitry and a bit of neuroscience. I think it's wonderful that Nature is willing to post their material for free online, esp. in PDF...

For those of you itching to learn more about the brain & neuromorphic engineering, I set up a page of links to related books.

All best,

Gregg Favalora, CTO, Actuality Systems, Inc.

Developing autostereoscopic volumetric 3-D displays.

I agree that field of view is very important for many applications, such as pharmaceutical design.

But rest assured, people are working on it...

This is a biased response -- our firm has developed (and is finishing up the next generation model) volumetric 3-D display with a 360-degree field of view: Actuality Systems

That is, the imagery takes up a real volume, and multiple people can walk around the display to see it from anywhere in the room. We even have a demo set up that lets you pick up a joystick and fly a helicopter over a moving terrain.

Anyhow, if you are interested in background information on 3-D displays in general, let me suggest: SIGGRAPH overview

and (by a team of students in Germany): Survey Article

-Gregg Favalora

Yeh, that's my understanding too. Basically this display is a regular display covered with a lenticular lens, which directs different imagery to each eye, rather like those cheesy "3D" posters you sometimes see in airports.

Does any one know of any other 3d visualization system being developed, any links would be most appreciated.

I'm working at a company right now that's making a true volumetric autostereoscopic display that works on a different principle. Details are at the Actuality Systems website.