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MIT Develops Holographic, Glasses-Free 3D TV
MrSeb writes "Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are busy working on a type of 3D display capable of presenting a 3D image without eye gear. What you've been presented with at your local cinema (with 3D glasses) or on your Nintendo 3DS console (with your naked eye) pales in comparison to what these guys and gals are trying to develop: a truly immersive 3D experience, not unlike a hologram, that changes perspective as you move around. The project is called High Rank 3D (HR3D). To begin with, HR3D involved a sandwich of two LCD displays, and advanced algorithms for generating top and bottom images that change with varying perspectives. With literally hundreds of perspectives needed to accommodate a moving viewer, maintaining a realistic 3D illusion would require a display with a 1,000Hz refresh rate. To get around this issue, the MIT team introduced a third LCD screen to the mix. This third layer brings the refresh rate requirement down to a much more manageable 360Hz — almost within range of commercially produced LCD panels."
Do they need to add more LCD panels? :)
"MIT Develops Holographic, Glasses-Free 3D TV"? Only if by "holographic" you mean "not holographic"
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
I can't wait to see another shitty Tupac. Wait, that's redundant.
So useless for TV.
Let me know when they develop a walk-around 3d display that multiple people can look at simultaneously and each see the correct view from their position.
Technoli
"Please state the nature of your medical emergency."
The article from the first link is a little better explanation than the second link.
This is not quite a hologram, but it is a true multi-viewer solution without the need for headtracking or other dynamic tricks. It is a precomputed video stream displayed on precisely spaced, and slightly higher-than-your-living-room-tv-refresh-rate, but otherwise normal LCD panels.
Basically, the MIT guys have come up with algorithms to compute a set of three overlay transparencies, which selectively occlude or reveal certain pixels when viewed from certain angles due to parallax, such that one of many possible perspective images of a scene is produced depending on the angle from which this stack of overlays is viewed.
The part they seem most proud of is that because these different perspective views are all of the same scene, many of the pixels are the same color from one perspective to another, so they only need to concentrate their parallax trick on making a select few pixels vary by angle, thus reducing the complexity of the problem to the point where it can actually be realized with consumer resolution LCD panels and attainable data rates.
Actually this makes 3D not suck. This is not at all like the 3D you've seen in your "games, movies and books/comics", this really is more like the 3D you see in real life.
Do I need to say more?
Holografika has been doing this for years. Time to catch up MIT...
Think of this like an integral display: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_imaging#Description
Except that instead of using microlenses to bend the rays, they are using the layered screens to produce virtually bent rays. The high FPS is because they can only produce one set of virtually bent rays for any one frame, so they need as many frames as they want points of view. IOW what integral displays need in extra pixels this display needs in extra frames.
To put it another way, this is to integral what parallax is to lenticular.
"You bought the wrong TV, sillyhead!"
So they aren't very clear if this is a real time solution or not. Even if it isn't real time, it seems like they are basically done for prerendered/static images (movies, ads, etc).
What am I missing?
Actually this makes 3D not suck. This is not at all like the 3D you've seen in your "games, movies and books/comics", this really is more like the 3D you see in real life.
That actually makes it suck more.
Don't get me wrong, the research is nice, and I'm sure there are tons of really good uses for such a thing. As a monitor for games and movies, it's a horrible idea. I don't want parallax. The last thing I want is to be sitting in a theater and missing part of the movie because of the location I chose to sit in. Or playing a game and having to constantly move my head to see things.
Today Viacom has induced me to swear off all the cheesy garbage TV of theirs I'd been watching on the net. I realize now what a colossal waste of my time that was, that could be better used doing other things.
The advancement of 3D viewing technology is, to my mind, completely pointless. The quality of what passes for television now days, and most movies too, is utter dogshit, with so many annoying, offensive, stupid, repetitious commercials that an hour long show is not much longer in reality than a HALF hour. Then I am expected to put up with all the ham-handed product placements (mostly Apple) that I don't even want to watch anymore. So spending all this time and money and effort trying to make it possible to watch something where what you see depends on where you sit is pointless, polishing a fat, stinking turd. They should focus their efforts on the economic model behind our visual entertainments, rather than worrying about the delivery medium, and come up with a way to have an hour long show that actually takes up 50+ minutes with interesting, valuable content, instead of this throw-away Shitivision we have anymore. I'm done. I'm cutting the cord, AND I'm not watching this garbage online anymore either.
Fuck Viacom, fuck television, I'm going to go READ. You should all join me too, send Viacom a big fat bird, say "suck a hairy syphilitic cock, you fucking pieces of greedy shit, you've lost me as a customer, drop dead you scum!" Everybody pick up a book, and let your brain come back to life!
So I'm assuming that this requires the source to be supplying the additional content at their 1000hz (or whatever refresh rate) to cover the full range of viewing angles? So now all we need are video media 1000 times bigger, and graphics chips 1000 times faster to supply the frames.
You know, you have a point regarding movies, I hadn't thought of that. However your point is invalid re:games. The only thing you achieve by flattening a game into 2D is that now you have to move your character to see occluded things, whereas the multiscopic 3D gives you the additional option of moving your head instead of your character, which can be a severe advantage when aiming (ie. you don't have to un-aim to look around).
Hey, how about a Modern Warfare game with this tech. Now when you peer around a corner, and the other guy snipes you, your real head explodes! Yeah!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Actually, from the summary, this method fixes the multi-viewer problem you guys are pointing out.
That's why it needs such high refresh rate -- it's displaying multiple angles at "the same time" for people all over the viewing area.
This is really a significant breakthrough. I mean good looking, glasses free 3D (please look at the video) which means MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS VIEWERS using CHEAP components. The only difficulty is the compute power requirement is a little high but that's nothing that won't be solved quickly thanks to Dr. Moore. (I think they are also able to use GPUs so massive cheap parallelism can overwhelm the problem).
A previous poster brought up the good point that it wasn't clear if the scene was pre-rendered. If/when it can be done on the fly (just a matter of CPU power), think of the applications. CAD, GAMES!
In 10 years (or less hopefully) we should have really large (80") true 3D displays that a bunch of people can stand around and touch (like what those guys in Perceptive Pixel, recently bought by Microsoft*, do). Talk about science fiction.
I actually submitted this story a day or two ago but I didn't understand how it worked (and still really don't get it, the math is beyond me). Anyway I'm glad it's getting the attention it deserves.
*Let's hope that Microsoft doesn't kill it, or use the patents it acquired to block progress.
... because I saw it on Star Trek.
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Yes, it is. This is anyone, looking at the screen from any angle within the supported field of view will see the (approximately) appropriate perspective of the displayed objects. No head tracking, fancy glasses, etc. required. Very much like an animated hologram in appearance, though the technique used is different.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If the display just tracks the viewer and adjusts the picture, then (a) it does not look 3D when you stand (or sit) still in front of it and (b) multiple viewers will not work.
As a monitor for games and movies, it's a horrible idea.
And you thought dead pixels were annoying before...
Well now you've got three times as many just floating there in front of your reticule.
Anyone know if it's feasible to construct a camera that records footage that this screen would output? Would they just interpolate between multiple cameras?
This is the first bit of 3D display tech I'm genuinely interested in, the current stereoscopic implementations have too many compromises.
is this going to be yet another device that could screw up a young child's vision and/or gives people headaches?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
They are looking for eye donations. Clearly you would be happy with just one.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Chris, you sound upset that you can't join in on the action.
The migraine test is the only true test for all 3D viewing technology.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Inspired by the tapestry on pg 560 of Skylark III I wanted to build a art piece that contained thousands of suspended beads -- as you walked around it, the beads would align into images that could only be seen from that one spot; it would be a random (although attractive) array of colors otherwise.
This work here seems similar, although infinitely more practical and realizable. Very nice work.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I wonder what the precise computational cost is of rendering complex 3D objects and scenes on this kind of technology.
I can't wait to have one of these babies to run Taodyne's 3D presentations software on it! One of the things which is tricky with current multiscopic displays is how to convert existing 2D movies. Ideally, you want to do that in real time, something that Tao Presentations can do for Alioscopy or Tridelity displays, but which is more computationally expensive for Philips/Dimenco displays.
-- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
It's LCD panels all the way down!
The last thing I want is to be sitting in a theater and missing part of the movie because of the location I chose to sit in.
Nobody complains much at the theatre or concerts, but if what you really want is a constraint of old technology, there's no reason they couldn't show the same picture at every angle. That ought to be much cheaper to produce and transmit, so it might even be the norm.
Maybe IMAX will gain some new purpose in life by showing 'real 3D' projections that need terabit-class stream rates. I'm looking forward to a nice fully immersive coral reef on a 60' screen at the local science center.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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Nobody complains much at the theatre or concerts
What are you talking about? Complaining of poor seating location at the theater, concerts, and sporting events is the single most common complaint about such events, more so even than complaints about the quality of the show itself.