Slashdot Mirror
3D Visualization Moves Forward
Chris writes "Showing for the first time at the Society for Information Display (SID) conference in Boston was a three-dimensional display with 100 million volume pixels or "voxels". The Perspecta is a hardware and software combination that projects 3D images inside a 500 mm transparent spherical dome. Images 250 mm in diameter can be seen from a full 360 degrees without goggles, allowing the viewer to walk around the image. It can be used to visualize protein structures and to plan surgical and radiation treatment by locating the exact position of a tumour on an x-ray or mammogram. It could also be used in air traffic control, prototype designing and security scanning of luggage. Perspecta uses Texas Instruments' digital light processor technology and a spinning projection screen, which sweeps the sphere." We've done some previous stories about this globe from Actuality Systems. The trend seems to be toward simulating 3D with high-resolution flat screens, though.
It can also be used to show to a group of people the design flaw in the Death Star.
The trend seems to be toward simulating 3D with high-resolution flat screens, though.
These are completely different technologies. The first is an "actual" 3D display. The voxels have a true location in 3D space, for instance. People can view it from any angle with no equipment.
The second appears to be just a large screen. People wear shutter or polarized glasses to send different images to the left and right eyes.
While the second techology is great, especially for high-resolution display to a single person, it really is annoying when used with multiple people with different locations in space.
Since there is only one set (left and right) images on the flat screen, only one viewpoint can be chosen. If a group of people is sufficiently far from the screen, or sufficiently close together in the room, it's fine. But if you let the people wander around the room, you start getting perspective problems that really make collaborative viewing troublesome.
I have a feeling that we will be seeing voxel-based visualization like the one mentioned in this post more and more often. It's just more natural to use.
As someone who is in the field of high-resolution scientific visualization (that's me on the left), I certainly hope that technology will move in this direction.