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IBM Develops New 3D TV Technology
neutron_p writes "IBM has recently announced a new and affordable 3D video system that works with normal DLP (Digital Light Processing) televisions. IBM demonstrated the new system on a 50-inch, flat-screen Texas Instruments rear-projection digital television at the 22nd annual Flat Information Displays conference held in San Francisco this month. This "black box" device can be connected to any DLP projector or television via the common VESA 3 pin stereo connector. Exact details concerning the 3D technology - still unnamed - were not forthcoming, but the company spokesperson said it was compatible with OpenGL and Direct Draw, which is definitely aimed at software developers who make 3D games."
Yeah, and the sysadmins at IBM just noticed a proliferation of sex sites in the proxy logs,
hope game developers decide to start using this kind of thing...it would be enough for me to go back to a CRT-type monitor over a flatscreen...
"Hey everybody! Let's put on our "special" TV glasses and have FUN!"
..........FULL STOP.
Um, how does a monitor run Linux?
I'm not it will work. People don't like wearing glasses, except maybe gamers. OTOH, Sharp3D seems to be a more promising way. What do you think?
Million Dollar Screenshot
Bang bang tish!
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
On the downside, you still need 3D glasses to correctly view the image and practically no video is shot in 3D as it requires more expensive cameras, but as price drops and general interest rises, this is sure to change.
Uh-huh. And we're sure to get virtual reality sometime soon as well.
It's great that IBM (of all people) have developed a system to allow 3D movies at home. But the problem is, there's no content. And I doubt just because there's a $1,000 US piece of equipment on the market that content will suddenly come spewing forth. ESPECIALLY when glasses are still needed for this to work.
This is a chicken and egg problem, but unlike DVDs and High Definition televisions, 3D has been promised for quite a while but has yet to come. The article makes it sound like IBM has made a giant break through and 3D movies are about to become common place. I doubt very much this is so (especially while we need glasses for these things). This is a positive step, but it's a small one. The adoption of 3D movies will come one day, but the road towards it will be paved with lots of small steps, and we aren't anywhere near the end.
Creating 3-D games won't be that hard. All the game software needs to do is render each frame twice with a slightly different POV corresponding to the right and left eye. The only downside is that frame rates for the game will probably almost half what they are for the mono version (assuming that rendering is a significant chunk of the total CPU/GPU processing budget).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Alas, this is only a rehash of the Crystal Eyes / Barco solution, which has been around for years. Granted, it's over an order of magnitude cheaper in price than it was in the mid-90s (these systems used to run around $60K for the projection monitor and $3K for each pair of glasses). Probably a bit less durable though.
And unfortunately, the writer of the article is a bit new to the 3D monitor industry also, or he would have given the Synthagram lenticular monitor a mention at the end of the article (mention of an affordable, glasses-free, 3D monitor).
You can watch the interview of the IBM guy at ZDNet: http://zdnet.com.com/1606-2-5942611.html
Quote:
IBM tends to develop cutting edge technology and then license it to third party manufactures rather than build and sell finished products. This strategy allows them to keep pouring funds in to basic research and cutting edge technology. It also permits wide dissemination of it's technologies throughout the industry increasing chances for permanent adoption over competing technologies.
An IP based business that actually trys to use its head.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
If they start developing software for this kind of thing (lets face it, software will take advantage of this kind of thing before mainstream film does) then there's a serious incentive for people to start investing into other stereoscopic projectors.
/. reported on a while back? This could be the baby-step that gets us towards that kind of setup.
Hell, anyone remember that 3d setup that was projecting onto the walls that
Wouldn't that be a 3d tv with a built-in VCR?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't DirectDraw the 2D graphics component of DirectX 7.0 and earlier. In DirectX 8 it was replaced with Direct3D which (as the name would suggest) would be more suited to 3D development that DirectDraw was. And as I understand it, Direct3D is so encompassing that Microsoft dropped DirectDraw and now expects Direct3D to handle all 2D and 3D graphics. So why on earth did the article choose to use the term Direct Draw (with a space no less)?
This may not be such a thing as chicken and egg. Maybe it's jut that people like 2-D TV. As has been noted many times, esp in regard to the ipod, video+audio is not always superior to video only. Stereo graphic books have been around for 200 years and they did not take over regular books. 3-d movies have not taken over regular movies. Holograms have not take over photographs.
When I wear a pair of Crystal-eyes doing anything elese with my computer or in the room is prohibitive. Somethings just work better as 2-d experiences. Our brains understand that not everything in the 2-d picture should be in focus. But in 3-d everything shoul dbe in focus if we focus our eyes on it--but that won't happen here. only some of this will be in focus so it's going to be mighty strange for our brains.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I have a huge Sony LCD Wega TV. Pretty excellent with the known exception of handling black levels. I looked at DLP, LCoS, and plasma before getting the LCD Sony. Sony's new SXRD sets are stunning, but $$$ so far.
:o)
My thoughts on 3D...wondering out loud stuff here...is that it should be possible to build a dual element DLP display. Twice as many DMDs offset 90 degrees with each half doing either left or right.
No glasses, just a "tuned" screen and electronics.
Haven't had enough coffee yet today, so I'm not describing this well, but I have in mind the "stereo tank" from old Heinlein stories, etc.
Grab the lighter fluid and flame away..........
Is there really anyone who would prefer to watch TV using heavy goggles just to get the 3D effect? I am not so sure. So many ideas that are 'cool' but don't solve actual problems get funded, while research in say efficient worldwide distribution of food or eradication of malaria get stiffled, despite being much more useful.
It looks like it's a rehash of an old idea: LCD shutterglasses with interleaved left/right pictures on a fast display. ELSA had a 25 Euro product called Revelator which basically consisted of wireless shutterglasses and an enhanced driver which added stereovision to every OpenGL application and game. NVidia later included this feature in their stock drivers. This system worked remarkably well with high refresh rates on CRT monitors but had some problems with ghosting due to the afterglow of the phosphorus. Since DLP projectors are fast and don't have afterglow, it should work fabulously, but there's no way I'm paying 1000 dollars for 10 dollar glasses and an IBM logo.
This wouldn't sell. People just want to sit in their living room and watch. That's it. Anything else is too much work. Besides, who wants to see stuff like American Idol in 3D? The singers are just as bad regardless of dimensionality.
Can someone explain to me the allure of buying three or four thousand dollar TVs? Cause I must be missing something.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
a 50-inch, flat-screen Texas Instruments rear-projection digital television
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
Linux is being used in similar situations I'm sure.
Cell phone providers are used for information gathering for terrorists.
There is a certain amount of leeway you need to give technology providers.
Concerns that improving human ability will lead to unpleasantness goes back as far as recorded history.
This is the major theme of science fiction, certain applications such as total monitoring and mechanical fighting machines are somewhat taboo for the simple reason that they are so likely to result in "bad things"tm.
However spread sheet processing?
Give them a break on this one dude, there are bigger baddies to target.
I wonder why they completely dumped the 3d glasses, that worked just fine in theatres (the colorless polarised ones, not the blue/red)
.... these were fun though for some games, but they are completely gone...
... yes duak head ... and maybe "split screen" gaming is finally possible without a split screen on the same box.....
Also where are the promised VR goggles? I tested one at a computer show with the "descent game" a long time ago, and it had ridiculous resolution (gravis cybermax or something like that), but now my cellphone has a better cheaper display so why aren't they there ?
Oh and where are the LCD shutter glasses? The ones that came with any higher end ASUS nvidia card? I know these were hard on the eye, because technically it halved the refresh rate with terrible blinking (e.g. a 80Hz monitor became a 40Hz output)
Mentioning 3d every time makes me think what sony really wants with dual video output on the ps3
but is dony about to bring 3d thru their dual output? with projection + 3d filter lens? VR goggles.....
We hear so much about 3d LCD, 3d DLP, 3d tv, 3d laptop, and I just do not see these devices on the shelves of stores when I walk in. Am I missing something ?
I don't get why people are so gung-ho about stereo displays. With stereo vision, at the baseline of the human eye, you can get useful depth information only up to about 10'. Beyond that distance stereo vision is pretty much useless for depth perception.
The only useful scenario for stereo displays is content located roughly in the display plane (and therefore no larger than the display diagonal). Which means it might be useful for medical applications or engineering design, but not for large environments such as the ones in games (or movies, for that matter).
"The technology also lends its self to the creation of high end presentation software - think 3D Power Point."
God forbid.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
At my last job at SEGA, my lab was in charge of coming up with many different and pioneering ideas for new ways to play video games, many of which, for one reason or another, never made it to market.
One of those was HOLO-GENESIS. It was a 3-D laser holographic projection device for the MegaDrive/geneis. It could have displayed 3-D rendered images, in full-color, in real-time, using a system of 3 red/green/blue lasers, and a finely-meshed micro-faceted surface which gave a pseudo 3-D effect based on carefully utilized light diffraction effects, a la printed holograms.
It was slated to come out in mid-1995, but at the time, we couldn't get a acceptable frame rate (3-D graphics accelerator hardware was still very primitive and expensive, the province of SGI workstations and arcade machines), so we decided to not commercialize it at the time.
In any case, I must say, this is a very interesting announcement, and I must congratulate IBM for further and seemingly admirable work on bringing such technology to the market. Hopefully they can continue to lower the price point and make it adopted wider.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
First off, we don't see in 3-D, we see in 2*2-D. We've had 3-D art for years, it's called "sculpture." The only difference between so-called "3-D" and traditional 2-D is parallax, and there are other ways to simulate depth from a static perspective, many of which are far more meaningful.
We simulate depth through motion, shading, relative sizes, overlapping and a slough of other visual clues that are easily captured on a 2-D screen.
Ask yourself, have you recently confused the foreground for the background in a film or a painting?
So why does everyone think parallax is so damn holy? I'll wear glasses to watch a movie when I'm going blind, or when they help me control my latent magical powers.
"...compatible with OpenGL and Direct Draw..."
So video games will be 3D with this, big deal. When can I read Slashdot in 3D? Or better -- when can I moderate in 3D?!
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Your left and right eyes can't always see the same set of objects.
If you use occluders and occluder volumes, then you run the risk of missing objects that were occluded from the view-point of the primary eye, but are not from the view-point of the secondary eye. So, you have to perform occlusion tests per eye or not use occluders at all.
You also run the obvious problem of objects "popping" in from the sides of your vision. There will be a moment when an object approaches from the side, into your peripheral vision, that the object is only visible from one eye. If this is your secondary eye, then I guess you'll miss it. When it is finally visible from your primary eye, it will suddenly "pop" into view. This problem can be fixed by performing your visibility tests from neither eye, but from an in-between eye with the view frustum scaled up to encompass both eye's frustums.
I just wanted to point out that this wasn't as easy as your made it sound. You can't just draw the primary eye, remember what objects you drew, and then draw them again from the secondary eye. Atleast, you can't do that if you want accurate results.
Justin Dubs
Man, I hate 3D stuff! Everybody is always talking about how cool things look in it.
I have this eye condition called strabizmus, which aside from having some other negative effects, means my brain doesn't process images from both eyes simultaneously. This effectively means I don't have stereovision, and one could argue that I don't have depth perception, though I'd argue back that I've just developed a different sort of depth perception than the "normal" person uses. As a result, the only advantage I get from putting on a pair of those 3D glasses (and I work for a biotech company, we even have this room with a special projector and everybody sits around with these clunky boxy glasses looking at 3D X-ray crystal structures of enzyme active sites - except me of course) is that when I have them on the image doesn't look as blurry as it does without them. So I guess I'm really rooting for the day when they can just beam a scene directly inside my head and bypass the optic nerves all together (I'm currently building one of these machines in my basement. Yep).
Oh yeah, and those pictures that look like an abstract jumble of spots, but if you stare at it just right something magically jumps out at you? I'm just like that big guy on Mallrats...
Errr, how does a slashdotter not get that joke.
You don't need fancy glasses. You polarize the light before it his the screen... I think.
-- Measure Once, Cut Twice
"Some sports TV networks have expressed interest in filming NFL games in 3D. To shoot in 3D, TV networks would need to install expensive 3D cameras and image processing hardware. "
My (admitedly simplistic) understanding is you could get the 3D persepective simply by fixing two cameras at approximately the same separation as human eyes. It can't be that hard to sync the frames, especially with digital technology. Maybe zoom is more complicated, but it still seems like that could be accomplished by varying the camera separation simultaneously with adjusting the zoom lens(es). Perhaps a bit of an engineering challenge, but wouldn't it be a fixed ratio? I can't believe that would be particularly expensive compared to the cost of production quality cameras. And then what image processing? This 3D TV, like all others, works by showing the slightly different perspectives to the left and right eyes...but these perspectives are precisely what is recorded to by cameras at slightly different positions.
Now broadcasting I can see being a bottleneck. I'm guessing you can't just hook up a new 3D TV to a regular cable box and expect to be able to transmit two video frame channels where you used to have one.
3D TV watches you! I for one welcome our new 3D TV overlords! This is a good thing! now stfu please.
Most current 3d apps are done using C++ on *nix that do medical or data visualization. Windows just doesn't allow enough control over i/o ports. I worked at a company that did 3D Graphics and we found out during the Win95 beta that we were shit out of luck. All our DOS hardware/software worked until the OS polled the port and knocked out the sync between the glasses and program.
Another stumbling block could be patents. Do a search on some of the patents Lenny Lipton (Stereographics) and Michael Starks (3DTV) hold. When I worked at 3DTV there was definitely an emphasis on building an IP portfolio to attract a buyout offer.
I wonder what video card can produce this....? Perhaps some sort of dual graphics card solution.
Are DLP TVs normal now? I thought they were still pretty darned high-end. But then, I don't have a TV, so what do I know?
-Rich
Neural interfaces to the brain. 3-Dimensional TV. What's next on /., flying cars?
Le français vous intéresse?
Take your hard disk out of the laptop, get one of those laptop adaptor kits (includes a cable and rails), but don't use the rails, plug it into a desktop with cdrom and install linux on your laptop drive. Then put it back into your laptop. You may need to get a pcmcia ethernet adapter to access the web in order to get the usb wifi working (if that will work at all). Most distros support booting/installing from floppy, but they probably don't build in wifi drivers. You could make your own disk, but then I assume you wouldn't be asking.
Or you could just buy a pair of shutter glasses for 69.95 from this site http://www.ray3d.com/glasses.html/
So basically they reinvented the shutter glasses for DLP TVs. Nothing to see here folks, move on!
You need polarized glasses (horizontal on one eye, vertical on the other) to block the light though. The advantage is that they're cardboard and plastic and cost about 10 cents, as opposed to electronic, connected to a computer and up to several hundred dollars for the active glasses.
First off the article makes it sound like IBM invented this when in fact all they have "invented" is a consumer way to utilize the real invention, DLP. Texas Instruments tied their Digital Micromirror Devices to two DLP processors quite a while back for the purpose of faster image processing, which would include 3D.
Christie Digital (3-chip DLP Cinema projector with the dual source inputs necessary), Dobly (media server), Disney (content creation) and RealD (active LCD panel and media processor) have already implemented this technology and you can view it for yourself if you go to see Chicken Little 3D. You are still required to wear a pair of cheap, lightweight polarized glasses but the active polarization portion of the image is being handled by an LCD panel placed in front of the projected image. IBM's version is placing the active polarization in the glasses, thereby creating a much more expensive pair of glasses (ok for home use, not practical for cinema).
Anyway, considering Disney's huge investment in outfitting theatres with 3D projection technology and the demonstration earlier this year at Showest of Star War's, Top Gun, and a few others in 3D, I think it's only a matter of time before we see more available 3D content. IBM's "invention" will be a good thing for consumers but it's certainly not the first implementation of this technology.
oh, btw...the key is DLP's ability to produce the 144fps needed by using dual processors but don't expect to see this in an LCD TV no matter what kind of video processing you put behind it. The crystals just cannot move fast enough.
The current polarized glasses in use for Chicken Little 3D have little more affect on looking around the room than a pair of sunglasses. Good active LCD polarized glasses will have the same affect when not processing. Focus has already been addressed...just go see Chicken Little 3D.
/. readers have been on this subject. Just go see CL-3D....forget the story, just check out the technology. It'll be worth it.
Man, I tell you, this is my second post on this subject and I can't believe how ill informed
There are many times I DEEPLY desired parallax perspective for video games. I can't tell you the number of times I've died just because I can't tell how far away an object is in the game. Especially when flying or jumping where I can't use my shadow to judge my position.
Video games will be the first to implement 3D. There's no need to change the game's code much, if at all, and gamers usually enjoy extra hardware that improves their gaming experience.
Porn industry will be next. Then maybe movies once the technology is more widespread.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
That was my first thought too. But then I remembered that our eyes are only a few inches apart and high quality camera lenses are much wider. They may be able to pull it off using mirrors and lenses.
I've taken 3D pics before by just moving the camera a short distance. If you move it too far, the pics will give you a headache. I use the cross-eyed technique to view the pics, so I just need both pics on the screen at the same time. It works, but I wouldn't want to play a game that way.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
I be monocular, you insensitive clod.
Arrr.
VR is very much in use in business...design concept rooms, network monitoring, simulators, etc...
Well I have a pair from the ASUS v7700 Deluxe setting in an old parts box that I would be more than happy to part with.
These are probably not shutter glasses, too heavy, requires wireless synchronization... bah.
A cheaper way would be to copy the method from the 3D Imax theatres where circular polarizing
filters are placed in front of the projectors with matching passive filters on the glasses.
Since this is based on DLP tech, then the expensive switching filter would be placed over
the mirror system - thus keeping size and cost down - much cheaper than putting a switching
system over the entire screen.
This kind of stereoscopic 3D imaging is nothing new -- in high end visualisation work it's been around for decades. However, I had the fortune(?) to attend this year's SEG (society of exploration geophysicists -- oil and gas exploration) conference where there were severel stands with 3D displays that did not require glasses. Most of them were stereoscopic displays with a special film on which makes the left and right eye see different images, given that your head is in exactly the right position. I didn't find these displays very impressive, but there was one company (LightSpace Technologies) that was demonstrating a true 3D display where you could see behind things and around corners by moving your head. The image was flickering a bit, and everything appears a little transparent - but overall the effect is much better.
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
That's great!!! :))
All You Need Is Love
> but the company spokesperson said it was compatible
> with OpenGL and Direct Draw, which is definitely
> aimed at software developers who make 3D games.
In a room off to the side, a smaller announcement was made in that this new technology would be compatible with OpenGString and Direct Drool, which is definitely aimed at the pornographers who will be driving early adoption.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I saw this idea at the 1996 COMDEX. The glasses use LCD's to block one eye at a time, alternating with each frame. That allows any normal video display to be used. The demo game was Descent II. It was neat, but you had to wear those glasses and the flicker was annoying.
That's why Americans prefer theatre to film.
If user interaction with displayed objects can be achieved, we'll be looking at a rudimentary form of the Star Trek holodeck. That would make quite a computer monitor.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
All Direct3d and OpenGL programs ALREADY have this ability. Nvidia has been doing this for years. It's built into they're drivers. All you need is to purchase a 50$ pair of 3d LCD Glasses (the same type described in the article) and download the '3d stereo' driver from their website and you're ready to go. Nvidia does it by rendering to two buffers at the hardware level (one for the perspective of each eye) and showing the buffers in succession. Say you have a monitor with 100hz refresh rate it just dumps one buffer on even frames and the other on odd frames. (note: the refresh rate is constant and not related to your fps).
This IS the same technology that IBM is talking about. The traditional problem with this is the refresh rates of projectors. Basically a refresh rate of 50~60hz is not enough to fool the eye without major strain. This is a limitation of the projector and not of any other hardware involved. So I don't know what IBM is relly talking about.
And an other thing! To have 3d VIDEO all you need is two 2d video streams from slightly different perspectives. Basically two regular cameras positioned beside eachother. By expensive they mean the price of 2 cameras instead of one. The hardest thing(and not very hard atall) is encoding a new codec that would encode both streams into one. kinda like stereo audio).
And yes, Half Life 2 is awesome with the glasses on. Especially when a projectile like a rpg or a rail gun type thing shoots at you. You can actually tell how far it is and what trajectory it's on.
Give them the illusion of choice and they will blindly follow for they choose not to make one.
Okay, so is this just a stereoscopic display for a flat monitor? It isn't anything like the heliodisplay, right? what I mean: http://www.io2technology.com/
Just so you know how this could be made a whole lot simpler.. use two DLPs and polarized light.. no need for this uber high framerate crap... I've done it, its pretty darn easy, and very, very cool looking. The glasses are $1 and don't need any electricity. Now, to be cheap just alternate between filters on one DLP very quickly.. Most cheap DLP tv's render three filters a frame as it is.. (RGB) Too bad LCD's are already polarized or I would use cheaper projectors..
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
oooh, uuuh .... the prices of their projectors .... I did not even want to know...
... you know in the $100-$1500 range somewhere,
.....
...
I was interested in consumer devices
I think current technology - such as a nice dual output VGA card and cheap lcd displays in a thin goggle - might comfortably allow creation of such 3d devices
I mean 2x 800x600 LCDs and some cheap optics mounted to a dual Nvidia would satisfy most gamers for a little driving, flying or a fragfest.......
Just think of those "video glasses" on google, or your choice of search, starting from $150
now tripple that with better RES and I would still buy it if I can set my renderer to render from 2 viewpoints on 2 heads of a video card.
Technically the old shutter glasses did that, and they worked well in lots of games without direct support built into the game.