Welcome to the World of
The Real Future of Web Pages
Today this page lies flat (or slightly curved) on your monitor. Soon it appear 3D through the magic of VRML and possibly anagraphic stereoscopy -- a wonderful technology first explored with the Magic Lanterns at the turn of the century (last one). But eventually this page will just float in space. A twirling volume of fascination, fractionation, and fibrillation. Over the next three months, we will be adding pages exploring the history of 3D television, from its origins with barrier stereoscopy and lenticular lenses in the 1890s to its modern implementation with barrier stereoscopy and lenticular lenses as we approach the millennium. We will also consider holography, dynamic optics, SLMs, and a few other esoteric approaches hanging on the fringes.
Relax and sit back, SANYO's 3D TV still costs over $10,000.
Stereoscopic Vision
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Stereoscopic vision is a
result of binocular disparity -- the difference in the
visual image observed by each eye. The top figure presents normal stereoscopic vision. The 4 cm. horizontal displacement of our eyes results in each receiving a slightly different view. If a picture is taken from each perspective and displayed in a ViewGraph (the Disney product) -- A binocular viewer, we have the most popular and historic form of virtual stereoscopy -- the barrier stereogram. Lenticular screens and their holographic counterparts achieve the same fundemental goal using respectively smaller optical elements. |
Arguments & Other Philosophies
Taken from an INFOWORLD EDITORIAL
From the Ether I Bob Metcalfe
Look Ma, no glasses! 3-D television debuts
".... The latest Cambridge Autostereo Display puts up 16 views updated 30times per second at 320 by 240 pixels, or eight views updated 30 times per second at 640 by 480 pixels. It will take a while to develop affordable 3-D TV in higher resolutions and in color. Lang and Travis say their Autostereo Displays can be used for computer-aid-ed design, scientific and medical visualization, remote materials handling, and keyhole surgery. In the long run, I think liquid-crystal shuttering technology will be the easy part. Generating, storing, and transmitting all the bits will be the hard part. Even the current experimental 3-D TV requires you to come up with 144 million pixels per second. Just for fun, I once calculated how much storage would be required to hold an uncompressed 2-hour, 35mm-qualitymovie in 100-view 3-D TV format. The answer was 5.3856 petabits (or about5x10'5 bits). This is one of the few numbers much larger than the federal deficit, and it doesn't take calculus to explain why you better be careful when round-mg it off. InfoWorld publisher Bob Metcalfe invent-ed Ethernet in 1973 and founded 3Com in 1979. He receives E-mail via the Internet at bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com or at 524-1127 on MCI "
And From The British
Hello ... can you see me yet?
Engineers say 3-D video phone just around corner
February 7, 1996
From Correspondent David George
IPSWICH, England (CNN) -- Virtually every home in the industrialized world has two electronic miracles: a television set and a telephone. But despite repeated tries over the years, the two have never been combined in a product that really caught on with consumers. The problem has been poor picture quality. Now, a British company is attempting to develop a picture phone with a display far better than anything on the market today.
Picture phones have been around for 30 years. They were introduced at the 1964 World's Fair. But the picture phone's image has always come up short, compared to television and movies. But BT Labs of Britain is about to go one better with a three-dimensional picture phone.
Their design uses multiple images, up to 20, blended together to create the 3-D illusion. The secret is in the glass that covers the screen. "This is an array of lenses known as a lenticular sheet," says research engineer Michael Jewell with BT Labs.
"The system uses a number of interleaved images and when the lenticular sheet is laid across the front of those images, it recombines those images so that each eye sees a different image," he says.
The BT system uses liquid crystal panels like the ones found on portable computers. The company admits that there are still some problems with the panels' ability to display 3-D pictures, and they're not ready for market, yet. "But hopefully, by working with panel manufacturers, we can come up with something which is much better in a few years time," Jewell says.
Picture phone promotions have always had something of a "blue sky" feel about them, promising more than the technology could deliver. Four years ago, GTE demonstrated a so-called "video dial tone" system in California that had people talking to each other over their TV sets.
But the sets were linked by fiberoptic cable, something not available in most homes. Jewell says that the 3-D picture phone will work on either fiberoptic phone lines or conventional ones. "It needs the Integrated Services Digital Network to run. But that can use the copper wires that you have in your home at the moment. Obviously, the higher bandwidth you use, if you go over to optical fiber, you can get a much better image," Jewell says.
BT Labs calls 3-D a "natural extension" of video telephone technology.
Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
Coming January 15,
The History of Display Stereoscopy
Barrier
Optics
Polarization
Lenticular
Holographic
Coming February 1,
Modern Technologies
For more information: contact Dennis J. Solomon ....
Copyright 1997 Volumetric Imaging ....
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