Slashdot Mirror
Sharp 3D Monitor Next Year
dOxxx writes "Sharp is bringing out a 3D monitor next year that requires no special glasses. It took them one day to convert Quake to work with the monitor. They are already selling cellphones in Japan for the NTT DoCoMo network with scaled-down versions of the screen."
I saw one of these at Sharp Space Town in Japan while looking for the new Zaurus C700, which incidentaly wasn't at that location. The monitor was very hard to look at, the different layers were very distinct and it was like looking at two images superimposed at different height. Was neat when you got just the right viewing angle, but pretty hard to maintain... you'd probably have to get a neck brace and not move your head at all =)
Docomo is Japanese for "anywhere". However, NTT somehow jammed it into an acroymn of sorts to mean Do Communications over the Mobile Network. - akamichi
They actually had these on display at the Electronica show in Munich this year. The effect is impressive and works well. The horizontal resolution is fairly low and if you move past the display you get this wierd 'popping' image. You need to stay stationary for the best effect. I got the impression that there was some type of fresnel lens on the fronts of the panel. Cant wait until the resolution goes up!
I would think it would be even easier than that-- the display doesn't actually have to be aware of the depth of anything, it just has to show two pictures. It could care less what they are.
A new 3D driver that renders the scene from two viewpoints, each an inch and a half to the left and right of the original viewpoint, would end up rendering exactly what your eyes need to see. I'm assuming their modified version of Quake does something similar-- rendering a shot for each eye, with the viewpoints separated a few inches.
But hey, what do I know? I just post here.