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But the Apple glasses won't look dorky - they'll look like not-quite-designer sunglasses, which is perfectly acceptable.

Then 2 weeks later, somebody finds this site...
http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?URL_=product_stereovis_inition_glasses&SubCatID_=3 ...and will claim that the Inition's glasses look *just like* the Apple ones, despite being quite different, and accuse them of just copying Apple.

Of course 10 months later some Mac website uncovers some obscure magazine interview with some..somebody at Apple already discussing 3D displays and "Glasses that would look no different than sunglasses" and use it to justify the claim that everybody was just copying Apple ever since. /tongue-in-cheek

Anyway... most people thinking of 3D glasses are thinking of this:
http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/3D-glasses-404_675044c.jpg

Rightly so, as that type (though not quite with the odd antennae-like things.. whatever those are), using polarization, is what is predominantly used in 3D theater shows right now (RealD, for example, though I believe the system I wore to watch The Final Destination 3D was a different brand).

But it only shows either...
A. their ignorance of the current state of 3D glasses
or
B. their belief that -any- glasses (even if you already wear glasses daily) suck.

A is unforgivable, B at least drives companies to further invest in autostereoscopic displays, so can't really complain; maybe some day they'll be as good as the glasses.

You're right about the glasses barrier. There are a lot of people that say that, but an large proportion of those change their mind once you have shown them a good quality film on a good quality screen (something like a Hyundai or JVC circular polarised lcd). They also tend to realise that cutting between shots, pans etc. is not such a big deal - and certainly doesn't cause headaches when done properly.

The viewing angle issue is really not a big deal either these days, there is less viewable angle than standard LCDs but you are still talking about a very reasonable viewing angle.

The implications of not being able to control the inter-axial distance between inputs (horizontal distance between lenses) when shooting precludes the use of single body 3D cameras in any kind of serious production environment. For the purposes of home experimentation there may be a market. Proper solutions include the P+S Technik mirror rig for closeup: http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?URL_=product_stereovis_pstechnik_mirrorrig&SubCatID_=81 or side-by-side rigs for other shots (actually, small cameras like the Toshiba mini CCDs work well for closeups on side-by-side rigs).

Autostereoscopic (no glasses) systems are a long way from being effective for home use - Philips just canned their WowVX project, and the current best market players, Alioscopy, are a long way from producing a consumer product (>5 years I reckon).

I work with these technologies every day and recognise that they are not for everyone, but I'm sure that people will take up 3D home viewing for special events, like films and sports, as the technology for viewing with polarised glasses in the home becomes more and more affordable, and the content on offer becomes more and more attractive.

You don't need shutter glasses to watch a 3D TV - you can get screens using Arisawa's xPol technology that use circular polarised glasses, identical to the RealD cinema glasses. Hyundai, JVC and others are making these screens, and you can get an entry level one for less than $2000: http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?URL_=product_stereovis_arisawa&SubCatID_=3 I can vouch for the fact that Sky are working on some very interesting content - sports events, concerts etc. - specialist content for 3D. No-one is talking about wanting to watch soap operas or sit-coms. Personally I can't wait.

Ultimately this technology is useless, because why do you need a screen when any available surface will do? He's putting a rectangular screen down on a white table for goodness sake. What's wrong with projecting directly onto the table?

It's fairly simple to answer this question.

Compare, mentally. You've got 50 people on a train, wearing one of these with a wearable computer, (such as a hacked ipod) vs. 50 people on a train with head-mounted projectors.

The 50 people with head mounted projectors are all going to be looking for their own patch of wall. I'm not exactly sure how things are in America, but where I live in Melbourne, space tends to be at a premium on crowded trains. There would only be enough wall space for the three or so people who were sitting on the floor near the doors, and even then it'd be a squash.

We don't want frontal projection that anyone else can see, or that is going to impose on anyone else's space.

What do you mean "Where Are the High-Res Head-Mounted Displays?" ??? Theres plenty out there! They just cost money.. I guess theres not enough demand to cheaply mass produce these things.

You suck at Google. Heres a few you may be interested in: 1280x1024, 1280x1024, 1280x720, stereoscopic 1280x1024 and 1280x1024.
Or if you have a lot of money to spare, try this panoramic head mounted display: 1920x1200 and apparently from 800x600 up to 2664x1160.

I can't seem to find the super high-res industrial and military grade ones though...

What do you mean "Where Are the High-Res Head-Mounted Displays?" ??? Theres plenty out there! They just cost money.. I guess theres not enough demand to cheaply mass produce these things.

You suck at Google. Heres a few you may be interested in: 1280x1024, 1280x1024, 1280x720, stereoscopic 1280x1024 and 1280x1024.
Or if you have a lot of money to spare, try this panoramic head mounted display: 1920x1200 and apparently from 800x600 up to 2664x1160.

I can't seem to find the super high-res industrial and military grade ones though...

Here's quite a comprehensive comparison of HMDs - monoscopic, stereoscopic and augmented reality. With specs, prices etc.: http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/compare.php?SubCatID=16 Looks like you're out of luck for getting the moon on a stick, but there's all sorts of stuff out there for big bucks!

I had no trouble finding a high-res HMD. The price made me choke a bit, though.

Ok, I should have been more specific. This particular equipment was made for a theme park, so it was made very robust. It resulted in the bulky design you see (it is actually a sawed plastic pistol for arcade shooting game, we put a polhemus device inside). The device itself exist in a wire mode (and can move in a cube of about 1m edge) or wireless (cube of 0.5m of edge). A wireless device is smaller than a wiimote. Here are pictures of a wired one and of a wireless one.

It used to be very expensive (around $5000) but that was before the Wii was released. I don't know of their current prices. They maintained it high because they were sitting on the patents for this kind of radio-location. But I think that production costs were somewhere around $50-$100. Seriously, once you have played a bit with this kind of sensors, a Wiimote is just laughable.

Do you know of any VR Goggle with a wide field of view?

The Fakespace Labs Wide5 has 150 degree field of view.

I'm hoping this comes out at home. For those of us with two projectors, appropriate polarizing filters, a special screen, and a few sets of glasses I have to say there isn't enough content.

3D displays are moving forward very rapidly, for example 3D DLPs for LCD shutter glasses and 3D LCD displays that use cross-polarized glasses or shutter glasses.

What can you do until LCDs catch up?

A quick google and I came up with this already

http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/guide_stereovis_a utostereo.htm

Such as these. We have some here in the lab at school that I had a chance to play with, really interesting. Applications include training surgeons, 3D modelling, and no doubt many others.

I think you could really do this if you combined this which would allow you to put the dangerous spinning thing like this inside the mirrors and interact with the top part with your hands.

The phyiscs web page is not a good picture but I have seen it work. Its really 3d and you can see it from 360 degrees around the xy axis but only about 100 degrees around the xz axis.

no you are right. We have a similar display at work:
http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product_stereovs_ volumetric.php

Unfortunately, It looks extremely cheesy, and a big proelm with it is if it isn't aligned it look terrible.

I hope Solar3D's look a little better but the technology has been around for a while and is not very impressive

They clearly state that they will NOT be using multiple images, and that the 3D objects will be displayed in mid-air, like outside a store window. No, I can't see how that would work, but your description doesn't fit in. By the way, here is a link to the prduct you're talking about.

Well, it does work.

http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product_stereovis _volumetric.php
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0224/hitac hi.htm

But in neither of those case can you interact with the image with your hands, because either the image is enclose in a glass sphere or it would be pretty dangerous to try to "interact" with an screen spinning fast enough to create the illusion. And in both of those cases, it's clearly based on multiple images, which 3DSolar claims they don't need.

Since both this article and their site give practically no information on how they create this effect, it's hard to speculate, but I would guess that if you can look at the object from different angles, it WILL appear 3D, since each eye will be getting a different view of the object.

At first I thought they were talking about a rotating screen that the image is projected onto, but from their description, it sounds like something else.

The article was a bit short on detail... the spec sheet is here (thanks Google)

It's 15", 1024x768