Slashdot Mirror
Seamless Video Walls
ahfoo writes "A company called Seamless Display is shopping around a new way of hiding the seams in video walls that mostly relies on modifiying video drivers to achieve its effects. According to their press release they hide the edges between monitors with a bit of plastic film and compress the video at the edges to produce a more or less seamless image. " Really bizarre, but it looks interesting.
Sound just like what I need in my room.
I can't believe it, and this is a in the first minute after the story became available (to non-subscribers, okay...). Mirror anybody ?
...that was mentioned on Slashdot.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
...modifiying video drivers to achieve its effects.
:)
That may be what that NVidia driver benchmark scandal was all about
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
The best application for consumers looks like the folding LCD displays. It would be great to have handhelds with a folding screen without a perceptible seam. Finally it won't suck to play games on handhelds.
Wouldn't a video wall be better served by having several rear projectors that line up perfectly rather than trying to eliminate the frame of a CRT?
It seems to me that with a good jig and a consistent set of projectors, and some good use of mirrors if depth is a problem, that you should be able to get a seemless image with very little work.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Having to change the video drivers to "compress the edges" seems like a messy task. I don't see any information about control software that lets you choose which edges are compressed, either.
A little sparse on technical detail, though that is somewhat expected... I want to know where the "compressed image" it talks about comes from. Does it create additional "virtual pixels" that cover the gap, and then mash them into the few on the edges?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
It's called packing tape
[ Don't reply to this ]
Big deal. I'm wating for the DirectBrainX from Microsoft. Just plug directly into the base of your skull and watch your will to live drain away.
Blue screens now resulting in total loss of bowel functions!
*sniff* I'm getting misty just thinking about it.
Hey... Geordi Laforge is cool.
Yeah, you don't see anyone else doing Reading Rainbow!
OLEDs are almost there, they are already being used in small portable devices (cameras and phones). They can be scaled without the fabrication issues that hit CRTs and LCDs. There is a good chance that OLED screens will be the first consumer-ready wall screen system (the current best of breed being the projector).
But this looks fun, and it may be a good stopgap. I'm wondering whether it can be used to build (for instance) large LCD monitors for PCs...? I once had a portable that used two B&W LCDs to achieve a larger display area, but I've never seen this done with color LCDs.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
What does this mean for the MS Flight Simulator Groupie?!? Are we going to be getting entire "flight rooms" now? AHHHHH!!!!
PORN!
+5, Female
Obviously, now they have compressed and hidden their whole page before slashdot crowd. So, it seems to be working.
"Two beers or not two beers. That's the question." -- Shakesbeer
It looks to me like they may have used one of the desktop models from Panoram Technologies.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
www.draper.com Back when I installed Air Traffic Control simulators we used Draper screens. I was looking at the Draper site and they said they had seemless displays and this was about a year ago. We could get pretty seemless with the large screens that we had.
after reading the pieces on CDR's which use organic dyes, and the organic dyes don't last beacuse they break down, I wonder about the long term viability of Oled's. Aren't those organic components subject to the same rules of degradation as the organic dyes?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Here's a Press Release...
+5, Female
Well, it seems that they use a lens coating to correct image corners (could be affected by wear and tear). I thought it was ONLY a software based change in display drivers.
Haha... Thanks for the memory.
I'm sure you meant ALL seams and wrinkles.
*shudder*
We'll have to see how good it is, and whether it looks any good from an off-axis viewpoint.
"Doctor, I want a system where everything comes out of one hole." Mike Todd, producer, to the head of American Optical, discussing wide-screen projection.
Here is another atricle about it that includes a picture of the display. This one isn't Slashdotted.
I would think the change would make MORE sense in the firmware of the hardware, than the drivers.
Customizations of drivers for specific hardware almost ALWAYS lead to bloated drivers that cause compatibility issues with other devices.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
(Oh, yeah! Like you weren't thinking it!)
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
Could it be that people are actually (shudder) RTFA before posting?
/. as we know it!
It's the end of
Or just gimme a link and I'll figure it out. I'd love to mirror stuff when I catch it, but I need to be beaten with the cluestick.
They use organic polymers - dyes are organic. Everything fades. Your laptop will fade. OLEDs sometime do this faster, sometimes slower.
Now if only they could apply this technology to the scars from my woman's boob job :)
-JT
I can totally see this being integrated in massive MISSPs where monitoring large volumes of incoming intrusion alerts and data on enterprise size SIMS (security information and management systems requires plenty of shuffling on a large visible desktop.
In a way very Minority Report-ish.
First erase the Mac OS and install Yellow Dog Linux.
Second login to your hosted server via FTP.
Third Create a new directory on the server and place the images there.
Fourth make sure that the files have the appropriate permissions to allow anyone to view them.
Fifth make sure that web server allows directory listings.
Finally, post the url to your newly created mirror on Slashdot and watch you bandwidth cap explode.
Yes, I know and you don't have to take my work for it.
They put in a few more dollars on that webserver and their slashdotting would of been seamless.
Clemson's Beowulf group is currently working on this exact topic, except you have ~7:1 fan out on the graphics nodes for rendering, IE, you have 7 computers rendering, sending the frame over 10/100 to the switch which has 1gig to the display node that outputs it.
It looks pretty sweet and they're getting there on real time graphics. All the projectors were just put back behind there on a rack (24 I think) and software + webcam is used to align and create a striaght and hopefully soon, color accurate picture.
FunOne
OLEDs have some time to go. I have seen some of the new kodak ones and they have a small issue. They can't do red or a deep blue, infact the red is orange. I load up true red from VESA standards, and I see an off Orange. The blue is pretty good, but violet is impossible for now. This doesn't began to describe aging. The Kodak camera that uses OLEDs has a life span of 1000 hours. That is total. The individual colors age differantly as well. So what was blue green will shift over time to either side. This isn't to say they have promise. They have effectivly an infinate dark contrast ratio (white/black in a dark room is integer over zero), viewing angles are great, and the true contrast as a product of reflectance and dark room contrast is very very very good. But in order to be realistic, they need material breakthrus. That is their big issue. It could happen tomorrow and in a year everyone could have OLED clothing, or it could take 30 years, like it took blue LEDs to happen.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
A little off-topic, but this reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. He mentions similar things in several of his other books of short stories including The Painted Man. It's not central to the stories, but I would recommend any of his books.
I guess a wall of these displays doesn't require massive amounts of electricity.
And the mostly content free first page.
This will be a good test of my provider :)
just use a fresnel lens that is enough to magnify each monitor, and tape 'em together!
in Calgary already did that scam and Zelit, the main culprit, ran off to central Europe...
Oh well, what the hell...
"more or less seamless"? Either a display has seams or it doesn't. Kinda like saying "more or less pregnant!" Slashdot could use more editorial control and less hype.
(And, as others have pointed out, why not just use rear projection for video walls? FAR less expensive than LCD's. But it could be useful for desktops/portables...)
I saw a demonstration using a beowulf cluster (well, part of one)
From a glossary, I get:
"Cluster of PCs or workstations with a private network to connect them. Initially the name was used for do-it-yourself collections of PCs mostly connected by Ethernet and running Linux to have a cheap alternative for "integrated" parallel machines. Presently, the definition is wider including high-speed switched networks, fast RISC-based processors and complete vendor-preconfigured rack-mounted systems with either Linux or Windows as an operating system.
So how do you get "part of" a cluster? Isn't it like being a little pregnant? I mean, I've never seen a Beowulf Cluster (though I have to say I feel like I should know all about them having read Slashdot for a while), if it's got some workstations connected by a private network working in parallel, then it's a cluster, isn't it?
I've seen SGI and Barco (the projector company) do this for over a decade on their massive multi-projector screens. (As have Panoram and others...) It's a combination of software (generally image overlap) and hardware (soft edges) that produces an invisible seam. With modern high-dollar projectors there isn't even a noticable difference in brightness anywhere on the screen.
Keep in mind that these sort of professional "reality centers" generally have very precise and predictable optics, these aren't the sort of projects you can buy at Staples or Frys. Cheaply made LCD projectors had a nasty habit of discoloring and changing their output look over time, especially when run for several hours every day. DLP has made a life a lot easier, but the cheap projectors still can't handle continuous use. Shop around and talk to the experts before you plunk a bunch of money down on an array of projectors.
Interesting that you should mention Clemson, since I also know that they use a similar (though not exactly the same) setup for the driving lab in the Psych Department. They don't have them clustered quite the same, but essentially you have a control box (for the steering and pedals) connected to a relay, which converts the signal to 10/100, which then runs the signal out to 4 different computers that each run one screen for the "car". These are all linux boxes, and there is a final box running windows that is used for setting up scenarios and monitoring subjects' responses.
It's really a sweet system.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Your roll-up wall-sized screen will be priced like drapery fabric at the local craft store.
It's not hard to spend thousands of dollars on drapes, if you want good (quality materials, non-white-trash styles) drapes. Add features like heat-reflecting fabric or motorization and it only goes up..
Or does that mean that if I want a big screen I have a choice of thousands of dollars for a good one, or $50 for a shit one?
It's like saying, "there is a perfectly good CRT out there, why would you want to go for a Flat Panel LCD, except for the looks", but this application is ALL about the looks, not quality. Just as with LCDs, you won't find a better quality picture in one yet, but the overall look of it is far superior to a big honking CRT sitting on the desktop.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
Damn u, now its back to repressive therapy.
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Oh well REAAAAAADIINNNG RAIIINBOOOWWW~~!!|
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LIKE A BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY!
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TAKE A LOOK ITS IN A BOOK!0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
--
You like granny-pr0n too, huh? Like taggin' the experienced shit?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Tell me about it... I have a 5 hour break in between classes and it takes me about 30 minutes to get home and then another 30 to get back because there is no way I'm staying on campus all day.
Now when can I expect Holodecks to become available?
works fine on osx.
I saw this on a tour of the Computer Science department at Clemson, where I go t' get meself learned. I didn't know the exact way they had the boxes networked, so I didn't say instead of spreading false info.
The only issue I saw was the brightness of the overlapping areas was higher than the non-overlapping areas simply because two projectors were displaying the same thing in the same area, as noted by Dirk.Reiners below.
Side note: this was also the first PC with a 3 1/4 floppy drive. Microsoft gave Data General the specs of how IBM was going to be formatting the newer size floppy and D.G. came to market first with it. They also spent a lot of effort convincing vendors to release programs on this new format media until IBM finally blessed the format.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Woo, now I can add a Linear Cockpit System to my Gundam.
...Or not.
like you can still see the lines in between the screens.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
Modded off topic for what? What was I supposed to reply to when the article wasnt there. Stupid mods.
it's err a feature...
I thought i told you to never call me on this wall! Oh well
Damn, I want one...
Anyone need a kidney?
+++ath0
After seeing a picture of how it works I'm not especially impressed. Seems to be nothing more than a glass lens and a video driver to "compress" the edges of the displays.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Hi,
what makes you realize that there are edges behind the lenses, is the fact, that the picture is somewhat darker in that areas. But the graphic driver has to be patched anyway. I wonder whether it isn't possible to eliminate the darkness by simply brightening the picture in the areas where the lenses are used.
darkcookie.
Seriously, didn't we learn anything from Farhenheit 451?! The government is trying to remove books from our lives! eh, on second thought, it's not that bad. I'm used to not having manuals to computer stuff.