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360-Degree 3D Imaging
CompSurfer writes "Yesterday, 3Dsolar released information about a new 3D imaging system, it works by somehow projecting onto a rotating screen. According to the story the "Prototype debuts at NVIDIA Oct. 25 in Santa Clara, California and [at] Innovact in Reims, France, October 5-7" I wonder where they are hiding the force field emitter..."
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I somehow have a feeling that what they are trying to do, just like every other application I have seen (projection through smoke, etc), is not going to turn out quite with either the resolution or clarity they want. I hope it works out, sign me up if it does, but I definitely have my reserve about their claims.
I've seen a handfull of display systems that used a fog screen to project 2d images before, and a few that relied on mirrored surfaces to create a 3d illusion. Light must be reflected off of something in order to be seen. This article doesn't say how it's done, so we'll have to wait for Oct 25 to see how its actually done.
If this uses a fog screen, will it therefore be vaporware.
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I still remember those "super-cool" (according to the salesman) 3D-glasses with two tiny lcd-displays. After standing in line for like an hour I was allowed to try them on, and playing the coolest game there was at the time - hexen. And I still remember how worthless they were and how ripped-off I felt waiting that hour. This new thing is probably nothing like that piece of shit, but salesmen are still salesmen so I am sceptic.
We need Ben Affleck to reverse engineer the process! *grumblesstupidbadmoviemessingwithphillipkdickgrum bles*
For the very first time, computer users will be able to view 3D objects hovering a few inches away from a screen that rotates 360 degrees - without wearing glasses. The stand-out feature is the way users will be able to manipulate the virtual image directly with their hands as they would a real object.
:O if prices will come down this is certainly going to make porn interesting.
The problem is getting the brain to provide the 3D image.
3D displays using 2D devices rely on getting each eye to see something just a little different. With the old 3D glasses, for instance, one eye sees no blue, the other no red, with each image being slightly different, and the brain gets the blue from one and the red from the other. The brain converts that into a result it can handle. Don't ask me how.
With a rotating screen, each eye would see a slightly different image. Depending on how fast the thing rotates, the brain could interpolate the results into 3D.
Just a guess, but it's a brilliant concept if it works.
sigs, as if you care.
No I don't think so. The porn industry has had access to really detailed CG for some time and they still insist on shooting in some gas station attendant's parents' house. Budgets for porn films go something like:
1. Pay the fluffers : $10
2. Pay the light guy : $10
3. Pay the editing costs : $10
4. Pay the director : $20
5. Pay the stars : $2000 each
6. Pay the drug dealer : $20000
7. Pay the bartender : $5000
And that's how you make a high quality porn film.
But using 3d tech? I've never seen a porn film do it before. That's because it would likely eat into the drugs budget too much!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Hey man, the clarity on R2D2's emitter wasn't great either, but it was sufficient to...
omg, I'm going to stop now before this post gets any nerdier.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
In their PDF Press Kit there is a mention of a patent:
PCT/FR 04/02082
Is this useful to anyone?
This is what is says on the 3Dsolar site...
It doesn't sound like a method of displaying images that have depth, with a different perspective for each eye. It sounds like a way of somehow projecting a 2D image that appears to be in mid air. I recall reading about this sort of thing ages ago, using some tricks with light to make images appear to hover in front of store windows using some form of projection. I think it is inaccurate to describe it as a 3D display if it can't give the perception of depth, but it still sounds like great technology.
Light Years Beyond . . . You would think that someone in the optics insdutry would not use the term "Light years" figuratively in a major press release . . .
Without tactile feedback when interacting with virtual objects, is this really a practical thing that users would embrace? Or is "interact with virtual objects" just a euphemism for using the mouse and keyboard?
This isn't exactly new. It sounds like this system I saw a while back. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it, but it basically has something akin to a thin pane of glass that spins around really fast.
What they do then is project a different image at each angle onto the glass. The images themselves are kinda like slices of a 3d volume (think volumetric textures). It spins just fast enough to fool the human eye into thinking it's seeing something hovering in midair.
I saw a few QuickTime VR demos of one of these a while back... they showed it with some wireframe terrain and a little purple jet thing in midair, as well as showing the sugar molecule.
Also, if I remember rightly, Nintendo had one of these puppies up a few E3s ago, with a model of that Star Fox character in it. Quite cool.
As for manipulating it by hand, I sure hope I'm wrong about the spinning glass bit...
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
The company's website: http://www.3dsolar.com/
The only way I could see this working is like those saucer discs that will show penny floating in mid air. The question is, how do you record the 3d image and project it back? 3d is a heck of a lot more information than 2d.
It sounds like all smoke and mirrors to me. No pun intended.
I remember the system your talking about. I looked around and found the #@#$ed thing. "Itme Traveller,sega 1991. Used a 2d pic mirrored about. http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyerdb&subpage= thumbs&id=1213This is a company flyer for the thing
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... who wonders how you create 3D images with only one 2D image? Doesn't that limit the 3D images that can be displayed or what???
Great!This help us find out who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo..
At least one blogger seems to be equating them.
.sigs: Just Say No!
Some guys on TV figured out a way to project the image of a pirate ship onto a fog. It was realistic enough that just about everyone believed it.
Then a few meddling kids and their dog showed up and showed how they were doing it. The guys turned out to be criminals in masks and got mad at the kids and the dog.
One of the kids was a stoner type, really liked the dog's snacks, and kept fighting him for them.
There are a bunch of peeps saying that the technology projects onto a peice of rotating material. Thats not what the article says.
For the very first time, computer users will be able to view 3D objects hovering a few inches away from a screen that rotates 360 degrees - without wearing glasses
I think this phrase is confusing people. That refers to seeing it from 360 deg around. Later in the article it says The 3Dsolar device projects the Windows or MAC desktop image into the air whereby users click on icons for manipulation. Nothing about any rotating surface. I still think there's something funny going on here, but we'll have to wait for some real photos to say how it works, not that PR junk on the site.
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But may i as why such a visually intensive project does not have any snapshots, pictures..
Besides the babe who is trying to imagine there is a cube...
The lunatic is in my head
That looks a lot like the DL-1 digital light projector, which is a video projector on a 2-axis tilt mount. "Using the motion control feature, project your imagery anywhere in a 3D space". It's used for nightclubs and stage shows.
It's a cute stage effect, but not a breakthrough.
So by modulating when you illuminate it (and what color, and how bright) you should be able to create a very nice representation of multiple objects; since the illumination only plays at the appropriate location in space, no glasses or other viewer-end tricks would need to be employed. It wouldn't look 3d, it would be 3d.
There would be size/material limitations, of course - the larger this thing is, the faster the outer edges have to go to get the same update speed. This would be a better approach for a personal viewing device than a group viewing device, I think.
Or, if you used a white surface, so that exact front-view objects could be created, put these spinners into "glasses" that would physically travel with the user, then sensing the viewers position would allow the display to change appropriately.
You could do some interesting things with a non-glasses version by making the screw something that varies in transparency as well - LCD or electrically controlled polarization. It'd have to be fast, though. LCD might not like the kinetic energy applied by the spinning, either.
It seems to me that all of the really hard complexity is in the illumination end, not the display end. Where do we get 3D information about the world? It's fine if you have synthetic scenes, for instance the output of a ray tracer, but to record 3D information about a real scene... ouch.
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