Bennett Ring has finally discovered an innovative 3D display that really works.
Most of our readers are probably fans of Sci-Fi movies, and will therefore instantly recognise the concept of 3D displays that don't require the watcher to wear any special goggles, sit in a special booth or chant a bizarre techno pagan mantra. Back to the Future II is an example that immediately springs to mind, with a Jaws advertisement featuring a giant 3D shark leaping out of a billboard. Truly cool stuff. It appears that this technology isn't as far fetched as you might think, and is actually on the brink of being launched to the masses, with both Sharp and Sanyo getting ready to release their own versions in 2003. But until then, the 4D-15 TFT will give you a taste of what this technology has to offer.
3D monitors that don't require the use of stereoscopic glasses or other user-mounted equipment are known as autostereoscopic devices, and there are three prevalent techniques used to make this work. The technique in use on the 4D-15 TFT is the catchy Wavelength Selective Filter Array Technology -- if you think that's a mouthful, just wait until you hear how it works. Here goes...
Using either a standard plasma or TFT screen as a basis, a special Wavelength-selective Filter Array is mounted on top of the screen. This filter spreads out the subpixels of an image into different directions, corresponding with their wavelength. A simpler way of putting it is that the differently coloured image elements can be seen from different spatial positions in front of the screen.
Images that use the 4D technology each contain eight perspective views of the scene, and parts of these views are provided to the viewers. This creates a plurality of correct stereo pairs in front of the screen. As a result of this technique multiple viewers can stand in front of the screen at a variety of angles, and each will see a true 3D image, without the need for additional viewing devices such as anaglyph or stereoscopic glasses. Due to the use of the eight perspective views, there are eight 'sweetspots' or viewing zones for viewing the 3D image. When a viewer is in between one of these sweetspots, which isn't common, they are presented with a pseudoscopic image. This looks basically like a ghosting or blurring of objects within the scene, but can be solved simply by moving slightly to the left, right, up or down. As the technology matures, more than eight perspective views of the scene will be used, giving even more viewing zones and removing the possibility of pseudonic images. In fact, the larger 50in 4D Plasma screen is capable of using 16 or 24 different perspective views.
We checked out the 15in TFT version, and watched a variety of different applications in action. First up were a couple of pre-rendered demos, which showed off the effect beautifully. It was quite disconcerting to sit in front of what looked like a standard TFT screen only to see objects rising out of the screen, as well as sinking far back into it. It was a much more comfortable experience than any stereoscopic method we'd tried in the past, and it was amazing how natural it felt after a few minutes.
Next up was a pre-rendered 3ds max animation, which used 4D-Vision's 3ds max plugin, and this was just as impressive as the company demos. Finally, the music video for U2's Elevation was shown -- that's right, a standard 2D video can be converted to 3D.
However, it's not a simple process, taking around a week of mantime for every minute of footage, at a cost of around $5,000. However, a new depth of field device that uses a laser scanner is nearing completion, which can be strapped onto existing cameras and will automate this process during the production phase. What this means to you and me is that within five years or so, 3D television is going to become a reality. Yes, 3D television is going to become a reality. Woot in excitement now.
Unfortunately the only thing we didn't see running were any games, due to a technical screw up, which was a major disappointment. This leads us to believe that the current drivers and/or techniques have issues with games, although it could be simply due to the fact that the current drivers only work with DirectX 7.
While the 3D effects were quite amazing and had the entire Atomic team convinced of the worth of this technology, it wasn't without its issues. The monitor was run at a resolution of 1,024 x 768, but this looked closer to 640 x 480 due to the Wavelength Selective Filter, making the Windows desktop unreadable. This technology is also very expensive at the moment, although the ability to get your existing 15in TFT fitted with the tech for a meagre $3K does lessen the blow a little. You'll also need a beast of a PC to run it -- at least a 2GHz CPU with a GeForce3.
There is no doubt this technology has the potential to be massive in both gaming and television, but at the moment it will probably only appeal to those in the areas of point of sale, CAD or medical imagery. It's hard to explain in words how cool this technology is, but believe us when we say that you should be keeping a very close eye on devices using it.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012