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Sandia's 20-Million-Pixel, 130-Square-Foot Screen
schauba writes: "Cipherwar has an article describing Sandia National Laboratories' new 10-foot by 13-foot, 20-million-pixel screen. The screen was created to allow scientists to view extremely complicated systems without sacrificing detail. The images are created through a parallel imaging system using 64 computers to generate the output.
This makes my 17" monitor suddenly seem so inadequate." You can also view the same text with pretty pictures on Sandia's site.
From the article: The eyeball is the limiting factor, not the screen
Yeah, sure it is. Throughout the history of time someone with a hard-on for a technology has slobbered away about how it's the last upgrade they'll ever have to do because damnit, it's more than the human eye/ear/senses can detect anyways. How many times have we had the moronic "The human eye can only detect below 60FPS!" arguments on Slashdot (yet I can refute that instantly as there is no doubt that Quake 3 feels smoother at 100+FPS than it does 60FPS, and the sense of natural motion blur is dramatically improved). How many times have people ranted that humans can only see X colors or hear X clarity of sound (both continually being defied).
The next time someone wants to sell their bosses on the idea that this is the last upgrade they'll ever need because it don't get any better practically, they need to stop and pick a different excuse. That particular one has just been proven wrong so many times it is now completely laughable.
Wow. I take it you're in research and it just burns you when research isn't taken as a religion that the unwashed masses simply absorb and believe: There are those of us who simply don't believe (believe in the religious sense of "just because that's what you say") when Scientist XYZ, with loads of documentation to back up their claims, proclaims the truth about something (usually proving exactly what they set out to prove), and months or years later scientist B, with loads of documentation to back up their claim, absolutely overrides the original suppositions and conclusions. This has happened in science countless times, but each time it is presented as this is absolutely, positively true : Look at our methodologies!
A perfect example of this is the number of "images" that the human eye can process per second, with various researchers attempting to come to a static number that quantifies and definitely states what the maximum FPS perceivable is. Of course they almost invariably fail to take into account persistence of vision, which is the concept that even if an entire scene isn't perceived the effects of the "sub-frames" merge together to form a common frame (natural motion blurring). That is what I mentioned about Quake (and it's funny how quickly you'll discount an oberservation: Don't you simply believe? Should I make some tables and package it in a whitepaper? Does that make it more credible?): Any Quake 3 player with a good system would have ZERO difficulty discerning between 60fps, 100fps, and possibly 200fps (or more), yet still there are those who will conclusively state that the human eye cannot see more than 46 FPS, etc. It is quite laughable though. In the case of pixel accuracy simply measuring the number of rods and cones in the eye would be insufficient and a half-measure: The "picture" that we see is the end result of a very intelligent system which may, for instance, do sub-pixel integration via "jitter" (i.e. you may have 20,000,000 "pixels" in your eye, but your eye is never absolutely still, which means that the light hitting your retina is contantly from a slightly different source: When looking at a leaf you are getting information from trillions of rays of light).
P.S. The post is interesting because most people in computers have seen this shit a million times before: Someone stating unequivically that the human ear/eye/nose/etc. can only see/hear/feel/taste/smell XYZ measures. CD is apparently beyond the absolute limit of human hearing (I won't get into the fools who believe that MP3 is beyond the limits of human hearing...), yet strangely they're coming out with DVD audio at 24-bits per sample/96Khz (versus 16-bits per sample/44.1Khz).
RTFA(rticle). This is an intermediate step to the REAL display, which will be 69MPixels. Note also that this gadget isn't really that expensive - 64 PCs and 16 projectors add up to maybe a quarter million bucks. A couple of years from now, maybe 300 MPixels for no more money. Digital IMAX theaters, anyone?
The article mentions that one of these toys is under construction down the road at UT. I can see I'm going to have to be extra nice to my lapsed contacts in the CS department!
-- John Dierdorf, Austin TX
When I saw the high-res image (the first one) and saw it was an array of projectors, I said "Eeeeuw! How can they get them all aligned at the edges well?"
When I looked at the 2nd hi-res image, and saw the color mismatch down the vertical center, I nodded to myself and said "Thought so. Bleah!".
But then I looked at that first hi-res image again, and noticed the bizarre shadow. Why is it all squared off? And then I realized--those projecters aren't just aligned at the edges, they're actually overlapping and registering correctly at 40dpi! Have you ever tried to get your company's LCD projector to project a reasonably orthogonal image? I can't get it even close. Now imagine getting two projectors to OVERLAP perfectly at the edges.
Color me impressed.
While the Sandia Monitor has 20 million pixels, IBM has a monitor that has 9 million pixles but is only 17".
Someone you trust is one of us.
IANAO(ptician), but I recall that it's down to the distribution (thanks to evolution) of rods and cones (light receptors) on the retina - near the centre there's one sort (can't remember which) that's good for recognising colours and shapes (useful when examining objects), and round the edge there's the other sort that's more sensitive to light/dark and movement (useful for spotting something with big teeth sneaking up on you).
On a normal computer screen we only have to focus on a small part of the image at one time (try reading the text at the top/bottom of this page while staring at the centre). Even on movie screens (which are a comparable size to this screen) we typically only need to look directly at one small part of it at a time and let our peripheral vision pick up the rest. But if this screen is going to be running hi-res images across it's whole surface (i.e. you want to watch the whole thing instead of focusing on one small part) then anyone using it is going to have difficulty seeing the whole image at once, unless they sit really far away or run the thing over and over so you get a chance to see everything.
I could just be talking out of my ass here, so I'd be interested to know if anyone here has used something like this and noticed any problems.
Oh, and before any wise-asses reply - I know my eyes move - I'm talking about trying to see the whole thing at once instead of focusing on different parts in rapid sucession and getting a killer headache.
- Wow! Imagine how great it would be to watch pr0n on this thing.
- I need to replace my 19/21/23/50" CRT/LCD/Plasma whatever.
- Imagine a beowolf cluster of these
- Someone give the reasearchers the goatse.cx link.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
~
HOT TEENS with incredible resolution! Hotter than you've ever seen before!
No more squinting at tiny Media Player windows!
karma capped
Well, if you actually read the article it would have answered your question:
Maybe the lower resolution (40dpi - which i would be surpised in) is not a problem - the fact is this would be usefull when dealing with larger images - youre not standing or sitting right in front of this mother after all - the pixel size would be larger i suspect thus making small detail (such as stars etc ) easier to see - maybe they are looking for field of view rather than super resolution ?
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....