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High-res Volumetric 3D Display Prototype
Gregg Favalora wrote in to plug his company Actuality Systems, Inc., which is working on a 90 voxel (8 color!) volumetric display. Could be useful for stuff like air traffic control. Or playing that chess game that we saw in Star Wars. Its not even a finished prototype, I'm actually posting this 'cuz I'm curious what uses people could think of for something like this.
So, instead of sitting at a workstation, and being able to rotate and manipulate a pseudo-3D image on my CRT, I have to get up and walk around, craning my head to see the object from a certain angle. Why?
We see in 2D, for the most part. (I don't think there's _that_ much gain in taking advantage of depth perception. Heck, I get by with almost none every day.) So for scene reproduction, it's can't be much better than 2D. And I think the user-interface aspect of 3D displays is _worse_ than 2D.
It's got huge Hollywood potential, but I don't see what real advantage this has over "regular" 3D graphics on a 2D display. Especially since the pseudo-3D display can have FAR higher detail and complexity than a real 3D display at a given price-point.
The company claims 90 million voxels, not 90 voxels. Although 90 million may not be that impressive (448 voxels cubed), 90 voxels (4.5 voxels to a a dimension) is next to useless. Assuming 3 bits per pixel, you'd need 32 Meg just to run the frame buffer. I wonder what the graphic chipset is like.
I just went to their site... "Resolution Breakthrough: Nearly 100 million voxels" No lasers. No goggles. Just a spinning screen target that they shine light on. It's almost too good to be true- the resolution's just too high to be "real".
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If you play with the optics some, you can get away with a sealed dome assembly. Make it a vacuum container and drive the screen with a magnet motor. That will allow them to scale it quite a bit further. Not huge sizes, but allow it to be something manageable, about the size of a 19-21" monitor with no issues at all.
I'm a bit amazed at the claim of only 8 colors. With a little work, these beasts could do truecolor. Talk about mind-popping...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
We're just not using them in that manner yet.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I'm surprised no one suggested the obvious. This would be a great way to torment pets. Have the display throw up a 3-D image of a cat, and watch Rover freak out as he tries to catch it.
Oh wait, is this the same system I read about a while ago that did its imaging on a reflective high-speed spinning helical surface? Then I guess it would end up turning Rover into mincemeat. Hey, I never said it was for tormenting pets you like...
Ever see Star Trek 3? There's a scene in the movie in a bar where these two people are playing a 3D dogfighting game. That's what came to mind when reading your post.
I think gamers would love this. Reason being alot of them are looking for the next "new thing". I think think this is it. Give it about 3 years when it mature you will see this at your local gameroom.
No? And it's only 450x450x450? Geez, I'll stick to my GeForce2 Ultra and a cheap-ass ViewSonic CRT.
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That's actually a Tobacco Mosaic virus, iirc. The same archetypical representative virus that's depicted in just about every high school biology textbook ever printed.
I can see the fnords!
The article even had diagrams for a vector display driver and assembler routines for 3D display...
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The Neonics company makes a neon transformer that uses a standing wave to light a part of the tube, all controllable under software.
So, I guess it's only a matter of time until the thing is translated into 3 dimensions...
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I can see a lot of uses of this in Research - specifically Nanotech, since its very difficult to picture how 3D objects get pieced together. This is especially true when complex geometry (helix, springs ) become the building blocks rather than primitives (cubes, spheres, cylinders,...).
Volumetric displays probably won't replace 2D displays for a long time, if ever, but I'll bet they'll have niches in which they're considered very useful. One such might be for collaborative work - having a group of people standing around a cube containing a 3D display.
Okay - this sounds cool, and it is impressive. But I don't see how this can help make drugs. I understand being able to visualize what the compound you are trying to make will look like, but can't that be done with cheaper off the shelf equipment already? What benifit would this have?
As far as I can see this is going to be part of two possible markets - video games and science museums. The video game aspect is, well, pretty obvious - the science museum thing would be cool because you could use it to display exhibit A today and five minutes later you could be all ready to use it on exhibit B - Like maybe have a holographic model of a machine or something.
I dunno - it is cool, but awful silly at the same time.
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How stupid of me!
So, we are talking about something real - even though it is not. Much like the hologram of a magnifying glass in front of a bunch of medicine bottles - you move your phyiscal being around and the image that you see throught the magifying glass is what you would see if it was there.
Hmmm. That makes a lot more sense to me now!
Okay - I take back everything I said. I want one of these!
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IBM was demoing something like this a few years ago at the University of Minnesota in the CSci building. They had on P90 laptop running the display, and another P90 rendering to it. Pretty sweet. Although, you could only look in from the front.
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That's what dithering is for.
You just need to be careful that you don't put dithers next to visable scan lines, plaids and stripes don't mix.
...making a real-life 3D display or making some kind of working VR setup? Note that anything on the 3d display will be "ghostly" - I don't want to be looking through the front of whatever object and seeing the backside of it too. Whereas a single 2d screen that can send different images to your 2 eyes, and that can sense where your head is (and also tell when you move the screen itself) is probably much cheaper.
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Man, that would be great!
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
...is display that hologram of Princess Leia from the first (at least released first) Star Wars.
What you've really got is a way to display 4 dimensions of data (3D plus color). There's lots of high-dimensional data sets in the world. The stock market springs to mind. Imagine looking at various ticker symobls and having price, volume, time, and delta (since start of day?) all shown at once.
We see in 2D, for the most part. So for scene reproduction, it's can't be much better than 2D. And I think the user-interface aspect of 3D displays is _worse_ than 2D.
Yes, our eyes see in 2D with little depth perception (our eyes are too close together for much triangulation at focal distances).
However, our HEAD is built for 3D. If you move your body one inch, your brain KNOWS how the scene should rotate or translate. And more importantly, vice versa: you rotate or translate the scene, it has the environmental context of the real world around the display, allowing you to judge angles and distances.
Secondly, a static scene appearing in 3D would have no device-introduced latency between "I want to see it from another angle", and "I see it from another angle". This is one of the major reasons for spatial disorientation with 2D display systems: latency between command and result.
The UI question, I don't think we've played around with enough. The "flying" UIs of virtual reality were just one step of an eventual flood of experimentation in 3-space user interfaces.
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At the end fo the day, this is just a more compact version of the spinning paddle display tank MIT showed better then 15 years ago.
I'd have to argue that it IS true three-D, though soem other posters are correct that the viewing angles are limited.
Their misue of "volumetric" though is annoying. Volumetirc rendiring and the term 'voxel' both refer to a tchnique for representing 3D data and rasterizing the 3D data so represented. It says nothing about the display device.
3D adds up fast, but static displays should not be that slow. If IDE cables can get 100MB/s... It's not like a 3D CFD problem, it's just a display.
One day, we will quake to this.
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Something similar, a vibrating-mirror 3D display, was tried in the 1980s. Ref: Mills, P.H., Fuchs, H. and Pizer, S.M., High-Speed Interaction on a Vibrating-Mirror 3D Display, Proc. SPIE: Processing and Display of Three-Dimensional Information II, Vol. 507, 1984, pp. 93-101. That became a product, but the product flopped.
The obvious use, other than the obvious Star Wars fodder, is in air traffic control. Those poor controllers are suffering information overload - maybe 3D visualization might help them out. Mind you, first they'd have to upgrade the systems to at least 1980s technology.
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I'd rather have a holographic image that you can reach into for your manipulations, but even 3D feedback is a good start.
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Imagine seeing ,from any angle and in 3-D, the process of puting something together. Something intricate and complicated. You could even zoom in on it and stuff :)
-Well, it may not take a Rocket Scientist to figure this stuff out, but I figure it can't hurt
Geeks! This is just too cool! :-)
John
John
Potential users include:
+ Scientists designing pharmaceuticals who need to quickly understand the 3-D shape of certain molecules.
+ Doctors who want to understand the location of a tumor within a patient's brain in a manner that enhances surgical planning.
Hmm.. Strange.. No mention of 8-colour volumetric Porn?
air and light and time and space
We saw how useful this technology can be in the latest Bond movie when the doctor shows Bond the bullet in the bad guy's head.
On Star Trek Voyager, the Doctor uses it to display scans, on Deep Space Nine they used it for communications purposes (as on Star Wars). There's plenty of good applications.
In the world of Sci-Fi, is this what is commonly known as Holotechnology? Or is that different somehow?
If not, soon we may have Holodecks like on Star Trek. I mean, your hand would go right through the images, but it would still be cool and good for REALLY 3d games!
Actually, you read my mind. The 3-D display's "proprietary rendering" algorithms relate to algorithms that are embedded in the display controller system. You'll never see them and you don't have to understand them (Fortunately!).
The user (customer) will actually be able to run a large percentage of OpenGL(tm) code directly on the display with little alteration, as you mention. We just have to be very careful about claiming "OpenGL" compatibility, etc., etc. But yes, lots of GL apps should be easily configured to run with the display. From the user's point of view, it's just a monitor...
(From a founder of the firm.)
Better yet, think of the money you can save on clothing! You can walk around naked, with a hologram of the latest fashions! Your clothing could be updated and upgraded hourly over the net! This could bring into existance a new type of buisiness... the fashion service provider! But then clothing would probably be covered under the DMCA...
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Having worked on Computer Aided Moleculer Modeling rigs at CIBA (old E&S vector displays with funky goggles that used blink-based 3D), there is obviously a LOT you can do with a display like this: get a team of mad-science Pharma PhD gathered around a molecule, and poke into the interesting bits. Animate it. Unfold it. Make it jiggle. Enlightenment is thus facilitated.
I mean, for an industry that is going to dwarf IT in a few years, this is pretty big step forward. I could see a lot of smaller R&D companies wanting this technology, and it could help level the playing field when it comes to innovation in an industry dominated by giants like Ciba-Sandoz and Merck.
So this may be too expensive for a toy (unless your name is Bill), but there is a lot of ways you could use a holograph to help in processes that require modeling of spatial relationships.
Other uses:
- 3d modeling for entertainment... do any hardcore Maya people want to play with this toy?
- arcade games (obviously not for the first coupld of generations)
- military and space applications (more ways to present complex information = worth paying for)
- a VERY funk disco-lava-kaleido-globe that will awe the ladies and set the 'right' mood. (I *did* say enhance your special relationships with models, didn't I?...)
Until that time, there's still good-old hardware accelerated 3D, rasterized to fit your standard monitor.
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Build and view the model of a room you want to simulate the acoustics of (note... must have surround system too). If you leave out the acoustics, you have the virtual site tour that all real estate agents already think you can put on a web site.
:)
Really, there are probably a number of CAD applications that could benefit somewhat from this. This way, you wouldn't have to change your virtual point of view; you could just change your real pov (wait... is that an advantage?
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OK, I'm sure a few of you out there watched Robotech growing up. There was an episode where Max and Mirya fight on a simulator that pops up in from of them in 3 D. That's the game I'd want to see.
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Yes... but the manipulation controls are SO hard to use
Mind you, the size of the domes isn't exactly huge initially [pic].
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)
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Big whoop. 3D is old hat. Develop a display which allows you to visualize 4d or higher with a generalized Rieman metric, then we'll talk.
What's funny is that sega had a video game that did this about 8 years ago. I played it at disney land. Very cheesy game, but same basic tech. Can't remember the name....
Google to the rescue - it was called Hologram Time Traveler.
Here's a related link
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The top end medical/seismic systems are running
about 20 gigavoxels.
There's a few things I don't get about this, like how *big* is it? Are we looking at something the size of a large ashtray, or would I have difficulty stepping over the thing?
:)
Anyway, since no-one else has done it I'm posting a link to deep video imaging (http://www.deepvideo.com/) who make 'actual depth' flat monitors. And besides, they're based in Christchurch - Go Kiwis!!
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
In medicine we spend a lot of time trying to view 3D structures by looking at 2D images and this sort of display system potentially could make things much easier. I've spent all day trying to look at people's hearts using X ray fluoroscopy (principles devised in the first half of the 20th century) and it's difficult to visualise what you're doing in 3D! Clearly in this situation real time 3D imaging would be tremendously helpful.
Incidentally, "Actuality Systems" display system has 90 million voxels, not just 90!
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The thing has mirrors and stuff spinning at high RPMs. Unless they put some really sophisticated accoustic damping on it, it's going to have an annoying audio output of some kind.
Sure it's cool, but it's really a brute force electro-mechanical approach. It's probably very expensive too.
Maybe someone will come along and figure out a way to precisely position electro-magnetic disturbances within plasma, Neon, or other gas in a sealed vessel.
Actually, I've been thinking that nano-projectors would really be the way to do this--ie, dynamic holography, something solid state. Each "projexel" would project a complete image. In fact, we could do this now. Just make a movie projector that fits within the volume of the lens. Cover a Jumbo-tron sized wall with them (yes, it would be very expensive).
From a distance, you would see a *much* larger than life 3d image. The trick is building cheap solid-state nano-projectors so you can fit it in your living room. Is anybody working on that?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The resolution is great but the response time sucks.
.88 magnum -- it goes through schools.
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-- Danny Vermin
Now, if I can just convince managment that it's the same price as a 17" monitor...
John
John
But, I think it is a good first step, just like early vga (and ega, cga before them) was.
11*43+456^2
Amen.
What people seem to be forgetting (or perhaps you didn't even read the article?) is the way the image is created. There's a screen rotating at 600RPM about a vertical axis, and the projector sticks an image on it every 1/20 second. You can't step inside it or reach inside with VR gloves to move stuff. In short, it's a 3D image, *NOT* a hologram.
There are some drawbacks to the design. First, at a certain size, the air resistance at the outer edges of the whirling screen will necessitate stronger materials, larger motors, etc. and it will very quickly become a big, noisy beast. Secondly, unless there's some very careful tinkering with the projection equipment, the voxels at the center are updated as often as the ones on the outside, resulting in squished (about the axis) voxels at the center and elongated ones along the outside. To make each voxel the same size, the refresh rate has to be proportional to the distance from the central axis.
I'm not saying it's not excellent tech, but it will be expensive to make it stable, properly proportioned, and quiet.
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Yep, that's 90 megavoxels. But before you get too excited, that's about a 600x600x250 pixel display. In 8 colors. So what we have here is the first 3D EGA monitor. :)
You need truly frightening numbers of voxels to do anything really interesting. I've done heat transfer simulations that crippled a SGI supercomputer for only a 30 cm tall by 50 cm wide tank filled with fluid. Shame the oil tanks we *wanted* to simulate were 10 meters high and 15 meters across...
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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.
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We already have this technology.
It's called girls.. and my god, have you seen the resolution?! Wooooooohhhh says Neo.
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... Many Bothans died to bring us this information. :)
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Just a quick note from one of the founders of the 3-D display firm.
Seems to be some confusion about the resolution of the device we're working on. The 3-D display creates imagery by projecting onto a rotating screen; it projects (at least) 200 2-D images, each of a resolution of approx. 768 x 768. Persistence of vision fuses all of these "slices" into a 3-D image.
Note that the images are stacked radially, like slicing a pizza - not linearly, like a deck of cards.
I hope you enjoy the site... We're working hard over here to have something ready for demonstration; we'll try to put actual photographs on the web some day soon.
Gregg Favalora