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Glasses-Free 3D On iPad (Sorta)
johkir writes "The Engineering Human-Computer Interaction (EHCI) research group has created an apparent 3D effect on the iPad 2. Called the Head-Coupled Perspective, it uses the front camera to track the relative changes in the position of the user's head."
2008 just called, he wanted to share this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QoaklieUho
So it's the same thing as Holotoy, which has been out since slightly after the iPhone 4 release? This isn't new, the only story here is that it's on the iPad.
Now Holotoy's effect isn't perfect, and the larger screen may help. I would be interested in seeing this in person, but it's not unique.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It has been done on a Nokia 1 year ago...
There was a game on the ipod touch years ago called Word Fu that did something similar without a camera, when you tilted the ipod your view of the dice would change so you could see the sides...it was subtle and not even an advertised feature but it became a rather mind blowing demo to show off to friends. It was accelerometer based only but combined with head tracking it could be an amazing new way to play games if it gets support.
There was a story on Slashdot a while ago (last year? later?) about how someone did something similar on the Wii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
I notice the 3D target thing is the same (I mean, EXACTLY the same) but maybe that's some kind of pre-packaged 3D test everyone uses? Though I noticed that the first example in the iPad used what were clearly Mii faces; is this just an adaptation of the Wii guy's work? Granted, the Wii guy had to strap the controller on his head, so they'd have to use the facial locating software. Ironically, that's what Nintendo's had since the DSi (and greatly improved in the 3DS). In fact, I *think* that's how the 3DS works -- using this trick. I might be mistake on that, but I'm pretty sure it uses facial location; I just can't remember if that's all it needs to get the 3D effect or if it uses other stuff as well.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
To recap the reason why current 3D implementations are lacking (and thus give some people a headache)... Humans use at least 5 tricks to determine the three-dimensional makeup of a scene:
1. Focal depth: based on how much the eye's lens has to focus
2. Convergence: based on the slight differences in pointing of the two eyes to a target
3. Stereopsis (static parallax): based on the slight differences between the left and right eye images
4. Motion parallax: based on the different displacements/motions of objects at different distances (e.g. as you move your head)
5. Visual inference: reconstructing using cues like occlusion, lighting, etc.
In the real world, all 5 of those systems work in concert, giving you a consistent understanding of your environment. The problem with modern 3D implementations is that they only trick you using only two, or maybe three, of the above. For instance "3D glasses" are showing you different left/right images, creating fake stereopsis, but the focal distance is still "to the screen" and doesn't match the apparent parallax-based distance to objects. So your brain is rightly confused because the various systems are giving conflicting answers. Amazingly our brains have no problem looking at two-dimensional images like pictures and conventional movies: in such cases 1-4 don't work, and our brains instead just use #5 to fully reconstruct/guess at the three-dimensional nature of the scene. A few optical illusions notwithstanding, this works remarkably well.
What's presented in the above video is fooling your brain using motion parallax. This is neat, but because the image is still flat, your other brain systems (1-3) will be giving a different answer and so the illusion won't be perfect.
In principle we could combine techniques to make for a more convincing sort of 3D. E.g. combine motion parallax (eye tracking) with stereopsis (3D glasses). But it won't be truly convincing (and thus headache-free) until we fully reconstruct the three-dimensional light-field that should properly be emanating from the virtual objects. Doing this requires some very good holography, to fully reconstruct the required light waveforms, or something like anisotropic pixels that can control their emission as a function of viewing angle. In the meantime, 3D will remain a bit of a gimmick outside of some niche applications.
Simpler: hollow-face & three dragons
Actually, inspired by how one preschool-theater costume (of a...cat; with proper ears) supposedly induced a panic attack in the kitten of my buddy, I essentially reworked the dragon once, to be more "danger! Possible unknown big cat!"-like. Yup, panic attack also in my cat.
(quick google search for the above wiki page even revealed one with a cat design... I can't vouch for how convincing it is, though)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Stereoscopy is almost 2 times older than "'talking' movies"... it is, in fact, pretty much the only such thing reliably proving (few times already) to be a passing fad.
One that hath name thou can not otter