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Technology

3D w/o Goggles 90

Posted by CmdrTaco from the holy-grail-for-graphics dept.
jamner writes "A Yahoo Daily News article mentions that computer users may soon be able to work on screens with displays that give the appearance of being three dimensional. The company is Deep Visual Imaging at www.actualdepth.com and their products page." They accomplish it by layering LCDs, so while its not going to fake a true 3d workspace, the depth would still add substantially to many applications (well, it would make quake cooler, and I'm sure desktop apps could benefit, but I suspect the medical industry has more important uses).
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3D w/o Goggles More

3D w/o Goggles

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  • Re:A matter of time (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Time to review your linear algebra. There are indeed three dimensions here. The only requirement for a third dimension is that it's independent from the other two. Just because there's limited resolution in one dimension doesn't mean it's not a dimension! Or should we call it 1.5-D (since our normal two dimensions are broken into rows and columns ;).

  • Re:3D display (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    wait... here it is :) http://www.actuality-systems.com/ from another slashdot post http://slashdot.org/articles/00/10/04/1427202.shtm l

  • uhm (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    DTI has had 3d monitors for a long time now. its nothing new... www.dti3d.com
  • This site [redrival.com] shows how to make a 3d screen. It is a device which attaches to the front of a computer monitor a bit like a glare filter or touchscreen. When combined with special glasses and software this allows full 3D images to be seen.

    -----

  • HMD/goggles aren't just for 3D (Score:4)

    by xeno ( 2667 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @01:09PM (#223554)
    I'm personally disappointed that the HMD (goggle display) news seems so dominated by 3D these days. And imho, I don't think the market is large enough to support desktop 3D displays. The way it's presented (in articles like this) make it seem like the only interest in HMDs is for 3D applications, and the broader goal is to get away from HMDs. I disagree -- I think a layered LCD 3D display is a very narrow market. Sure, many advances in display technology are driven by gamers with deep pockets and a few research organizations, but I see a whole raft of broad-market HMD-related benefits that are *non* 3D applications.

    These are:

    • larger virtual displays
    • lower power consumption than big desktop CRTs (and layered 3D lcd boxes)
    • more advanced manufacturing experience with small lcd displays (usually = less expensive)
    • privacy (consumer market supported by security geeks & porn afficionados instead of gamers)
    • portability (imagine 1600x1200 res on a long flight)
    • potential reduction of cost by market expansion into other areas (connected to the 3D market)
    • potential for integration with wireless for truly portable systems
    • higher level of ergonomic flexibility due to reduced reliance on a particular seating/standing position


    In other words, the logical technology+market progression would be to expand HMD to encompass 2D and 3D needs in a lower-cost & commercially viable manner, rather than push excessively specialized hardware. The perfect package for me would include a set of relatively high-resolution (1280x1024) 2D goggles with a motion sensor configured for 3+ desktops, and a Datahand keyboard [datahand.com] pair. Those interested in a 3D configuration would need only make a software reconfiguration to adjust the motion sensor input to provide perspective based on user motion, rather than physically emulating single-position stereoscopic vision. For me, it'd be far nicer than the multiple-monitor setup I have now, and would fit in a locked drawer when I wasn't using it.

    A layered 3D desktop monitor would be kinda nifty, but a minor usability advance compared to a much more flexible HMD. But I suppose I'll have to be happy with the castoffs from the gamers...

    J

  • Cheese. (Score:2)

    by grub ( 11606 )

    They just use layers of LCDs? I currently use a set of wireless Elsa Revelator glasses [elsa.com]. They are cheap, (~100-150 dollars), work with any DirectX or OpenGL game, and most nvidia cards.

    With the light off and the SBLive on high, it's the only way to game :)

    grub
  • No, no. You're thinking of Actuality Systems [actuality-systems.com], which also creates 3D displays (and has been featured on Slashdot), although in a much different way.

    Actuality Systems, from what I can tell, displays 3D images by rotating a screen around very fast and then displaying different slices of an image onto that screen. I believe it gives you a "truer" 3D display, at the drawback of having to view it inside a big glass sphere.

    ActualDepth appears to be using the hi-tech equivalent of those 3D images you see on the front of children's books sometimes. I'm guessing they're going after the consumer market, while Actuality Systems is probably going after industries.

    ---

  • Those 3D Pipes can mess you up. Folks'll probably got whiplash trying to dodge 'em.

    --
  • I can't see 3d. Apparently the connections for my eyes to function together just weren't wired right when it counted. I can move my eyes in unison, but there is no 3d effect.

    Makes some aspects of life a bitch, like RC airplanes and driving... :)

    Blatant, manufactured 3d I can pick out, but your everyday depth perception... uh-uh. Doesn't work. So, thank you very much, I'll stick with regular LCDs.

    (Although I am interested in VR headsets. Any sites you can recommend that deal with these things? Reviews, news, etc?)

    -lf

  • autostereoscopic displays (Score:3)

    by NeilO ( 20628 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @12:03PM (#223559)
    Cute idea. But here's a much more interesting autostereoscopic display from 4D-Vision [4d-vision.de]. Available in either 15" LCD or 50" plasma. What you get is 8 different viewpoints displayed through a special grille that reveals only one view to each eye. The result is a stereo image, wihout glasses, and you're free to walk around the room. The thing actually works. They were on display at NAB in Las Vegas, they look not perfect but definitely promising...

  • Yet another 3D-without-goggles thing. Yawn. (Score:4)

    by iapetus ( 24050 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:08AM (#223560) Homepage
    I first heard reports of imminent 3D without goggles when I was in secondary school. Since then I've been to university (twice) and been working for three years since then.

    So excuse my scepticism if I say that I'll believe it when I see it.
  • You're nothing more than a dirty Memepoolista!

  • I remember a form of 3D without "goggles"... (Score:3)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:39AM (#223563) Homepage
    More precisely, without "glasses".

    Back in the mid-late 80's (perhaps earlier?) I remember watching an episode of "That's Incredible", about these two guys (may have been professors?) at a university or college (in California, I believe) who created a form of 3D that didn't require glasses.

    In fact, it didn't require both eyes! That's right, you could close one eye while viewing it, and it would still look 3D!

    They broadcasted a few video clips of the effect on the episode of "That's Incredible", and it really was amazing. The two dudes who came up with the system said they did it with some kind of "black box" device they had created, that could be inserted between a video source and the display, and it would "make" the image 3D. You could tape the clips, and it woud still look fine if you played them back.

    At the time, I was stunned - still am - that such an effect could be produced. I remember that the images were kind of shakey (the inventors of the process admitted this on the broadcast), but not annoyingly so. I remember taping the episode, but I have since lost the tape. I remember trying to play it back, closing one eye - and yes, it all worked! There was depth to the image (this was the one "problem" with it - the depth went "into" the screen, not out of it - so it looked like you were looking through a window - but it was still nice).

    Has anybody heard of these men, the episode, what the technique was, what happened to them, how it works, etc? I have seen many strange ways to get 3D - but this one has always taken the cake as the strangest, since it relies on a fundamental brain process to trick the brain into seeing 3D (even with one eye!!!)...

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • Umm, I think you're referring to a tactile system. There already are braille readers that can do web pages, if the pages are useable with lynx. As for 3-d, if it is necessary to see stereo up close, I probably couldn't use it. You see, when I was 11 I caught a 2X4 in my left eye (playground disagreement)and have no central vision in that eye, so I can't see stereo very well.
  • Yes, but that should only happen if you're updating all the layers simultaneously. There's no such thing as refresh for LCD screens. Of course, all LCD screens I know of use ordinary analog connectors, but that will change should new technologies like this become available. After all, why have a video card send sync signals if they're not used for LCD?
  • Something I was playing with last weekend:

    Flip the left hand image about its vertical axis, and place it next to the other image. Then hold a small mirror held perpendicularly to the screen with your nose resting on the edge of the mirror so that your right eye looks directly at the right-hand image, and your left eye looks into the mirror at the virtual image of the left-hand picture. Jiggle the mirror about a bit until the images coincide. It worked for me using a couple of digital photos of my front room taken from a few inches apart, and I found it alarmingly successful at inducing a headache.

    And no, that's not all I was playing with.
  • I've had 3D images on my website for years without the need for funny spectacles or wacky layered LCD screens....

    http://www.zipworld.com.au/~surturz/threed/3dindex .htm [zipworld.com.au]
    -SurturZ
  • ah, you mock.

    That is indeed the most promising option open for real 3d. The idea is stunningly simple: if you decrease the angel of dispersion of the lenses, you can engineer it so that one eye sees one frame of the "animation" while the other eye sees the next.

    Not great if they are two successive frames in time, but if instead each frame shows a picture from a slightly different viewpoint, you get 3d. Instead of a fixed picture, you put that cracker jack lens (a fresnel lens, in effect) infront of a display with the resolution set to show two pixels per ridge -- one per eye.

    The only problem is that it will be pretty sensitive to keeping your head in the "sweet spot". And the positioning of the lens wrt the pixels on the screen is tricky, but that is all ok, because this sucker is cheap. the only hardware you need is a massproduced piece of plastic. The rest is software, interleaving the stripes from each eye's view.

    Not as nice as a hologram, true, but in terms of bag for buck, really hard to beat.
  • The several people argument is based on the fact that instead of having only two images interleaved and redirected by the lens as I described above, they have several. So if you display four pixels per lenticular stripe, you get three sweet spots -> three people (or one person who can move his head).

    However, each additional pixel you allocate per lens implies a corresponding decrease in horizontal resolution. One workaround is to keep it monochrome: this effectively multiplies the horizontal resolution of [formerly color] LCD panel by three. Otherwise, the lenses become so wide that you'll end up noticing the horisontal banding. Another workaround would be to stagger the lenticular lenses (more of a hassle to manufacture, tho), so that the pixels no longer get alligned in one vertical line.

  • *cough* bullshit *cough* (Score:3)

    by Coward, Anonymous ( 55185 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:31AM (#223570)
    Imagine 10 layers (not very many at all) and 1024x768x24 at 60Hz. This means you need a graphics card capable of handling over 12Gb/s of data. In comparison, my 1600x1200 monitor only needs 46Mb/s of bandwidth

    Since the LCD is 24 bpp at 60 hz, don't you think you should figure the same for your monitor?
    1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixels
    1,920,000 pixels * 24 bits/pixel = 46,080,000 bits
    46,080,000 bits * 60 Hz = 2.76 Gb/s (where Gb = 1,000,000,000 bits)
    I don't know where you got your 46Mb/s from, but it's quite a bit off. Rudimentary logic tells us that 10 layers of a lower resolution is going to take less than 10 times the bandwidth, not the 200+ times the bandwidth you claim.
  • This may be "3D w/o Goggles", but I guarentee that these screens + pr0n will guarentee lots of "3D w/ Oggles".


  • Theres a company who's owned by the same investors that own GT Interactive (Doom and others), who have something in the works. I wish I remembered their name off hand. Using something that resembles sort of a voting booth, they're able to project an extremely high quality 3d image using mirrors, and something reminiscent of one of the old screen televisions, rgb colored lights from 4 angles that get color and depth values from computer generated output run on I think it was an SGI =( fuck I wish I could remember the name of the company offhand.

    Anyways the original intent for these gizmos were for use in trade shows, and things of that nature. On the way out from consulting at the company my friend and I were speaking to some of the game developers at GTI, who stated that they were supposedly slated to do something with the company in the future. (this is rumored so don't quote me)

    When I saw the gizmo's though I was impressed as all hell by the images though, and unfortunately the techies responsible for its creation were pricks who didn't care to shred any kind of info on how exactly its run... Anyways I'm hoping someone would have seen something similar at a Linuxworld expo or some other conference, I'm sure its been seen, maybe not payed attention to though.

    Oh well as for this company their PDF's tell nothing, but they look colorful, they do say they run an PII @ 800mhz but no words on OS or anything else. And they're huge files for such little information. Will this be another one of those "smell the internet" schemes?

  • Some company did this a while back, it was on slashdot actually. Unlike most of these, it was not vapor, there was an actual review of the thing, pictures of it, a solid explanation of the technology, etc. It had about a 10 degree field of view or so ("sweet spot"), but if you stayed in that area, it was supposedly a beautiful screen.

    Course, it was like a flat LCD with a lens fused to the front or somesuch, but it did work. And the technology worked.

  • Yup, upon closer inspection, this is indeed the same product. This has been my token product for lame ideas that should never have gotten as far as it did. And if this can make it this far, image have far a truely good idea can go.
  • I think I remember seeing these on display at Siggraph 2000. They are pretty disappointing. Basically it's just two LCD layers about an inch apart. So, you do get "depth" but it's hardly realistic,but really just a cheap hack. It's not a true z-depth display.
  • We had one of these at work - in fact, the first production unit ever... serial number 001. It's a very cool device.

    No special input needed - it's just 2 SVGA inputs. 2 computers, or a dual-head card, is all you need.

    The back screen is a bit fuzzy, and the depth separation is about 2 cm (too big!), but it's very very cool. Our unit is now at Fort Leavenworth being utilized by an Army research laboratory for future combat systems. We bought a 2nd, and I hope I get to play with it some more.

    Cheers,
    Brian

  • As I mentioned elsewhere, I've actually used one of these displays.

    There are just 2 planes in the z dimension. However, a 3d rendered image on the near plane can trick your brain into thinking you are seeing a true 3d image. It's pretty neat.

    I think Deep Imaging has the wrong marketing angle. It seems pretty useless for the average consumer, but I see thousands of military applications in confined spaces, like aircraft. You'd be surprised how much more info you can cram into a screen when you have one more dimension to use.

    Cheers,
    Brian

  • I work for a defense contractor, and we've been using this product (serial number 001, actually) to demo some advanced display concepts to the Army.

    I think consumer use of something like this is limited, at best, but in military, medical, maintenence, etc... limitless.

    Our software demo was simply a CAS mission (Close Air Support) where a pair of attack aircraft enter a warzone to attack a mechanized infantry unit. The mission was complete with artillery fire, standoff weapons, enemy aircraft, SAM sites, etc. We chose to display ground units, terrain, etc, on the far plane, and air units, threat rings, etc on the near plane. It was very cool, and very easy to determine what was happening even in very "busy" environments with multiple threats. On a traditional monitor, the screen would have been much too cluttered.

    Best of all, the screen is flat. It's only a few inches deep, and is ideal for confined spaces, like the interior of an aircraft (or any other location where space is at a premium).

    Some other military applications we've thought of are putting an IR scope image on one plane, and a light intensified image on the other, letting Abrams operators access both scopes simulaneously, rather than having to flip from one to the other.

    I've dealt alot with Bruce, their East Coast sales rep - quality guy. Lots of fun. :) I know Deep Imaging is trying to get us to release our demo application, so we are working thru QA as I type. I expect that, if we get it released, they might start using that as an additional demo at trade shows. I know Bruce thought it was awesome.

    Cheers,
    Brian

  • I think it's pretty obvious where the 46Mb/s came from... he's just running his monitor at 1Hz.
  • check out the Spaceball from Labtec :
    http://www.labtec.com


  • Awright, new technology!!! Do you think I can hook my Virtual Boy into this thing??
  • After a bit of research I found this, I'm not sure if it's what you were refering to or not. It was featured on "That's Incredible" at some point, but I'm not sure of the date. It's called VISIDEP, it uses a standard video signal and alternates left and right frames every frame. The site claimes the effect can be seen by one eye.
    http://www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ccrs/eduref/srad ar/cha p3/c3p7e.html#c3p7_g1


    =\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\ =\
  • Wasnt this story allready posted before?

    Oh well. Nice to see that they are still around.
    Too much vapor in computer companies latly.
  • see this site [nyu.edu] for real info on work done at NYU's Media Lab on 3D w/o goggles
  • How am I supposed to watch the animation if it comes only on quicktime??? And more important, why is Slashdot linking to a site that does not support a linux friendly page? uhg!
  • Those 3D Pipes can mess you up.

    Yes, they [alexburke.ca] sure [alexburke.ca] can [alexburke.ca]. (At least, [alexburke.ca] that's what students of an unnamed university [alexburke.ca] claim [alexburke.ca]...)

    --
  • You speak of going to 64 layers as if the difficuty of this is the same order of magnitude as going from one layer to two.

    This two-layer screen is probably a two-layer hack. They haven't designed a system that can be layered, or they would be advertising that.

    -Erik
  • What about Dimension Technologies Inc. (DTI)? Think theirs is a better solution than layering... Link here, www.dti3d.com [dti3d.com].
  • They accomplish it by layering LCD



    I know some people that can acomplish the same effect using LSD....

    --

  • I found this [stereo3d.com] page on Stereo3D [stereo3d.com] about two months ago. It is a showcase of several 3D-sans-glasses products.

    If it wasn't so expensive it would be a great hobby. I got a pair of discontinued shutter glasses on E-Bay, and they are pretty good, if glitchy. And so far they only work on Win98.

  • Screw games and desktop apps! This will take the Porn Industry to new levels! The possiblities are endless!

  • Some company did this a while back, it was on slashdot actually.

    Link [philips.com] The Philips 3D LCD has a much wider sweet spot, several people can see the effect at once.

  • someone make a jpeg displaying the effect for me! thanks
  • here are several other relevant past /. articles for the interested, including a couple on the exact same technology from different companies. all are cmdrtaco posts too!

    one [slashdot.org]
    two [slashdot.org]
    three [slashdot.org]
    four [slashdot.org]
  • I don't recall if it was from ActualDepth or one of the other "goggleless 3D" monitor makers. The display was a ~15" LCD covered with 1-inch deep slats. A very weird and expensive beast. My boss at the time (about 8 months ago) was extremely excited about the demo unit and called all of us over to look at some rotating cube demos.

    "Does it look like real 3D?!?!"

    My exact response was "ummm, uhhh, I guess so?"

    The image was somewhat dim and only had the slightest bit of depth to it, not quite what I was expecting. Still, it was better than looking at a flat psuedo 3D image on a CRT or plain single-layer LCD display.

    It'd say it's a good monitor if you have deep pockets and a good imagination. *shrug*
  • This sounds suspiciously like the technology that made those cheezy "holograms" that came in Cracker Jack boxes.

    You know. the one with the plastic ridges which would "animate" when you looked at it at different angles, n' stuff...

    =P

    E.
  • Is it just me, or does the manufacturer website provide no explanation of how it provides depth of field? I especially like their "technology" page.

    To their credit, they do make good use of empty space on their website :)

  • How It Works - Dual Monitor Video Cards (Score:5)

    by CritterNYC ( 190163 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @11:17AM (#223598) Homepage
    Actually, the unit is essentially two seperate LCD screens combined into one and (i believe) will work with an off-the-shelf dual-monitor video card. The connections are simply 2 x HD15 RGB Analogue (2 standard monitor connectors). So, you could actually use it on any OS without any drivers or anything. With drivers, the thing will really be able to shine... adding things like foreground and background buttons in OSes, popup windows in applications that actually popup, simulated 3d effects within games, medical apps, imaging stuff, geographical stuff, etc, etc. There are many possible applications. Actual Depth did have to do some work to get it to work nicely, since we need a truely clear LCD in the foreground (which is 6bit) so it doesn't disrupt the background (or main) LCD which is 24bit. Initially, the company plans on using it for marketting kiosks and the like (since it'll definitely catch people's eyes), but I anticipate a quick move into arcade game units, commercial applications and, eventually, home applications. My friend who has seen one says it is quite cool looking.
  • for a second there I thought this article was about searching the web in three dimensions...then I realized it says *goggles* not *Google [google.com]*! D'oh!

    . . .

  • Drawer-full of Barf Bags (Score:3)

    by Sianne ( 198783 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:11AM (#223600)
    Having taken part in virtual reality testing, I'd hate to see what this would do to the workplace.

    We had enough people barfing just trying to find thier way around a room. Could you imagine how bad it will be when these things actually hit the market affordably?

  • So excuse my scepticism if I say that I'll believe it when I see it.

    Then come to NHK Studio Park in Shibuya, Tokyo; they've got a 3D-without-goggles system on permanent display, and though it only works well when you stand at a certain distance directly in front of the screen, it works excellently within those limitations.

    And that's not even state-of-the-art anymore. At a digital-TV fair they had earlier this month, they had what was essentially a hologram on display. Yes, really. Not quite the same because you can't look at it from the side, but within the viewing angle (about 60 degrees IIRC) it's a 3D image standing in midair. You could even stick your hand (or your face) in it like they used to do in all those sci-fi shows. Frankly, it knocked my socks off.

    --
    BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL

  • At CeBit a German company, 4D vision http://www.4d-vision.de demonstrated two 3D screens, a 15" and a 50". This was by far the most impressive techology I saw at CeBit.

    This is fully 3D screens, you see objects from another angle as you move you head in relation to the screen.

    According to the sals rep there the screen needs 8 seperate 2D frames, i.e. 8 seperate channels.

    The only snag about them was that on certian angles a verical sector probably 1/8 of the screen width tended to go out of fokus and become difuse. When I asked about if it was a prototype problem, they said "no, it's the laws of physics."

    They had seqence from a Doomish style game, reprocessed into a 3D sequence, but it was really cool, the gaming industry is going to eat it alive.

    The price quite on the 15" screens I got awas US$ 5000,-.

  • slashdot of the future... (Score:3)

    by sfraggle ( 212671 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:11AM (#223603)
    3d goatse.cx links! aaaargh!
  • I've been digging through my collection of old games that run unplayably on anything over 33mhz recently and came across Magic Carpet from Bullfrog. Granted it used sterograms (cross your eyes and lie to your friends that you can see a ship) but they were successfully producing 3D, without goggles or even a monitor upgrade, in a commercial game, ten years ago. It kind of makes you wonder what they could do with a modern PC and a little help from NVidia if they re-explored the concepts.
  • ...but you really can't have 3d in a boxed environment like a monitor. The closest you're gonna get is through projection (hologram? :) where you can actually look all around the object. This monitor sounds more like 3d rendering.
  • You're mainly correct. Only some small technical remarks 1. In this approach you don't need more than 10 layers - human eye can not define difference between images generated by 10 or 11 LC layers at the current level of pixels size 2. Yes, it is 2,5 but our (people who create 3D devices) main goal is "illusion" 3D, because digital holography is very expencive and slow. The same situation is in sound area. 3. We (3d.neurok.com) use neural network (small "brain") to generate special image for each of two layers. Today, we are mainly in real-time using GeForce3. No additional changing in game coding - all algorithms are realized in DirectX. Hope to sell fisrt mass - user 3D display during next year :-)) You can visit us in INFOCOMM 2001 (Las Vegas) or PC EXPO 2001 (NY) (last two week of June)
  • clippy is leaving! I couldn't stand having that little bastard show up in 3-D.


    Murphy's Law of Copiers

  • Looks like they are primarily marketing the technology to advertisers and kiosk operators, not end users. See the award on the front page they got from kiosks.org, and read some of their literature that indicates "higher hits" using this technology.

    In this situation, I can definitely see the advantage. I'd walk up to and play with a kiosk that had such a display at least once.

  • Only 2 planes in Z? (Score:3)

    by FastT ( 229526 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:10AM (#223609) Homepage Journal
    I didn't see a clear description--is this limited to only foreground and background planes, or do they use a technique for tricking the eye to see intermediate depths? I can't imaging that a simple foreground/background display would be flashy enough to justify the cost for the majority of users.
  • would look interesting. 3d pong? 3d asteroids?

  • I remember the show. My stepdad does too and has wondered where the hell those guys went...

    Didn't they cobble it together in their garage?

    The real problem is to find the killer app for it. More than likely to be in games I imagine, if someone is ever able to make a transparent, layred E-ink solution. They could print them out like the phones we're supposed to see this summer.
  • It's called shrooms, and it's much more realistic than a simply layered LCD.
  • ...yet in so many aspects we think 2d. The implications of working with a 3 dimensional interface are far beyond the obvious benefits of viewing a physical entity in it's true dimensional sense.

    But what about entities that are created in our mind and given a physical reality for our purposes such as a spreadsheet or database model? Imagine the capability of designing schema relationships in 3 dimensions. Or creating a financial report utilizing layers of cells. How will this affect UML tools? What potential does this have on development applications?
  • o is that a pink flying pig i just saw flying by? What I want is some sort of total immersion system for gaming. Something for Tribes 2 or UT would sell like hot cakes. I dont know about you but Im tired or playing finger twister with my non kanji keyboard for tribes 2 and using a mouse too. Black and White has some good ideas with gestures. I want headsets or a room full of 3d screens or a magnetic levitated hampster ball with holographic projection. I want a REAL gaming experience. Holodeck any1?
  • Do they come in IMAX sizes? :D But seriously, for total submersive 3d, you need to remove visual references to the 2d world, ie., monitor frames, do make it in a size that is beyond yer peripheral vision. Imaging a room full of those :D *dang, walked into the wall again*
  • I think the price of a PC is possibly a safe entry point. I know I would pay that but only if it was good.
  • Sounds like the website of the ISP that will be servicing my brother's new house. They have fibre right to the basement, so I wanted to find out what the bandwidth options were (so I could decide if I wanted to move into his basement of course). I go to the website. The have a FAQ. It goes like this:

    Q: How fast is the service?
    A: Our service is the fastest available!

    Duh...
  • Might as well supply a link...

    Stupid FAQ [futureway.com]
  • I wonder what (not so much for a 2 level system, just push a button to hop between the 2) would be an effective navigation device for a 3D screen? Mice are inherently 2D. Some kind of joystick with a hat switch? I really have no idea, but I will be interested in seeing what people will eventually come up with.
  • Right there on the web page, under "Technology" [actualdepth.com] of all subjects, it says
    "
    Increased advertising space - Within the footprint of a conventional touchscreen monitor, Deep Video Imaging monitors provide extra screen space for content and/or advertising."

    Just what we needed -- even if we didn't think to ask.

  • Hey now... (Score:4)

    by Salieri ( 308060 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:11AM (#223621)
    I'm impressed that a company called DVI could be so high-tex.

    --------------------------------
  • Because Slashdot's tag line is not "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. (But only if its Linux/opensource/free friendly)"
  • Is it too late to say "From the-goggles-they-do-nothing dept."?
  • First of all, this should really be labelled 2.5D, not 3D, since it is layered.

    It was only a matter of time until people started coming out with displays such as this. Layering 10 transparent LCDs would be good also.

    The problems is the bandwidth needed to drive such a beast. Imagine 10 layers (not very many at all) and 1024x768x24 at 60Hz. This means you need a graphics card capable of handling over 12Gb/s of data. In comparison, my 1600x1200 monitor only needs 46Mb/s of bandwidth.

    But then, bandwidth is a widespread problem that is getting more attention than other problems. Imagine an HDTV receiver that gets 10 channels synchronized to a 10 layer monitor... 2.5D movies, anyone?
  • Cannon have developed a monitor with Criterion (The RenderWare people) that does this using just 2 "layers" at lasts years ECTS [ects.co.uk].

    From what I could tell (I have a vision problem, so I was starting at this monitor for a few minutes wondering what was so special about it) it works the same way as the hologram on Coke machines in pubs (the ones where the image moves with your head).

    There where infact 2 images projected onto cones. When at the right distance, each eye will see a different image (a-la 3D goggles) giving a true 3D image.

    Of course, this technology assumes people have the same distance between the eyes, and have no eye dominance problem (I'm *very* left eye dominant, I only see 2dimensions, which is why I didn't see why the monitor was good at first.

    I havn't been able to find any info about it at the cannon website though....
  • By integrating this with LIDAR and RADAR telemetry and FOF systems, Aegis, a simple but custom Quake III mod, and a fleet of unmanned remote controlled HMRKVs (High Mobility Robotic Kill Vehicles, "Homorobokills" in military lingo), the future of war is being defined by the Pentagon and CIA as a huge Quake deathmatch.

    Unknowing teenagers and gaming enthusiasts will download these very entertaining "combat simulation" mods for Quake, install them and go to town fraggin. Unknown to them, however, is that the enemies they are fighting against are actual real life enemies on a foreign battlefield and that their quick reflexes and Quake deathmatch mastery are serving the Forces of Democracy. Each motion is transmitted via satellie to a HMRKV dedicated to this user.

    In addition, multiple gamers may command a single HMRKV. Certain server side algorithms are employed to identify the most effective killer and those commands are the ones sent to the HMRKV.

    Id software is nothing more than a front for the CIA these days. Sad but true.

  • 3D pointing devices? (Score:3)

    by madfgurtbn ( 321041 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:30AM (#223628)
    Has anyone come out with a decent way to point in 3D space? Mouses/mice/whatever that you can use to manipulate 3D images in CAD would be handy, for example.
  • Will users of these monitors who also wear 3-D glasses be at risk of time travel?
  • I think you have misunderstood what this is. It is a monitor with two layers of display, one behind the other, so the surface is still smooth and flat.
    But I do agree with you that a tactile display would be extremely cool.

    But I'm looking forward to when we get transparent displays with resolutions of tenths of microns (ok, this is a bit far in the future) so we can have real 3-D holographic displays. That would be even cooler (at least for those of us with eyes).

  • One thing you can't really do with hardware layering and mixdown is provide a feeling of space - with this screen you can move your head ever so slightly and get a concept of depth, even if its only minor.

    This could have exciting implications for future GUI design, and if they perfect the manufacturing process to the point where more than 2 planes can be sandwiched (say, 32 or 64?) then we start seeing some really interesting opportunities for GUI design, not to mention the artistic value, which is often inappropriately overlooked in technology.

    Imagine a GUI that gives you a degree of depth inherently without requiring large resources - buttons could have 3d edges that were handled at the hardware level, rather than software - thus making for better resource management, and therefore leading to more efficient GUI performance. This may seem minor, and perhaps it is, but I can see how this would have potential.

    Once we get up to the 64-pixel Z-plane level of production, I can see widgets being designed that use the Z-plane to provide ancilliary info feedback to the user without requiring any more interaction on the users part than to just move their head and look closer.

    I was thinking about this similar "liveliness" aspect of GUI design the other day when playing with http://www.praystation.com/ (excellent web page) - it'd be nice if there were some way to produce a screen that could figure out what you were looking at, perhaps by bouncing something off your retina and doing geometry to get a point of what you're looking at. In the 80's, marketing devices that used lasers to see what you were looking at were used to do market research of TV commercials - it'd be nice to see something like this built into LCD screens, so we could do away with the mouse altogether.

    But the thought I had was that, with something like this, the longer you look at the control the more information it could provide you - bringing a "liveliness" aspect to the control that we don't currently have with the static 2d shapes we call user interfaces right now.

    Having a 3D screen with a 64-layer Z-plane would be another way to add 'liveliness' to an interface... you could for example build a mixing console that provides you with channel insert information, with amplituded represented in depth.

    I'd say 64-layer Z-planes would be the next major step for this company. Get things to that point, and the GUI design world starts to get *really* interesting...
  • have'nt you been keeping up with games? quake is a 3d thing already and you get to shoot things, not like excell.

    this is just a trick to make us buy more equiptment, just like video cards that didn't even let you play video tapes.
  • This sounds VERY expensive, plus I imagine it would need a special graphics card.
  • "[...](well, it would make quake cooler, and I'm sure desktop apps could benefit, but I suspect the medical industry has more important uses)."

    also, the guys from 4D-Vision have acomplished a Doom- (or was it Quake?)- Port and a auto-stereoscopic version of GlView, the underlying engine of the blaxxun-Contact-VRML97-browser. I've seen both of it in action on the Web3D-Conference earlier this year and it looked pretty impressive

  • I did some reading about this a few years ago (sorry, I don't have any links), and I tried out several systems at an "arcade" in NYC. For all I know, it may still be there, near times square.

    It was WICKED COOL! It was also incredibly expensive of course.

    As you say, the software would be no problem by now.

    The catch is the goggles. They were somewhat low resolution. You can only fit so many pixels in a display small enough to wear, though I'm sure we can do better now than we could a few years ago. The displays have to be aligned JUST RIGHT for each person. They are heavy, at least they used to be (I don't remember whether the ones I tried were CRT or LCD). The helmet has to be tight to keep them in place. Adjustable helmets just don't cut it, at least if you want to move around much. Probably the only way for this to be practical would be to build them on a motorcycle type helmet, which would have to come in several sizes and fit tightly. Now as a long time motorcycle rider I wouldn't mind, but most people (i.e. consumers) would not want to use them for long periods.

    Also the goggles kept fogging up. I think a couple of little fans would have helped that.

    And yes, they do have head-tracking devices, which work reasonably well. They don't work by gyroscopes, but by a sort of triangulation method with 3 sensors mounted on the walls and a transmitter on the helmet or vice versa. They had a transmitter on a hand held device too (I suppose the guns and swords had two, to establish where they were pointing).

    See through screens have been tried as well (think heads-up displays for pilots). I don't remember the details. If I had the capital, I'd love to work on it.

  • er, the helmet must also have had two, to determine which way it was pointing. duh.
  • So... how much would you pay for this.

    seriously

    see my post above.

  • This is good.. (Score:5)

    by chemical55 ( 446280 ) on Monday May 14, 2001 @10:01AM (#223638)
    The starfield screensaver is reborn!
  • It isn't so much "I'll believe it when I see it." as it is "I'll give a damn when it's supported in Linux" In defense of 3D Goggles, LCD Shutter glasses are fairly convincing at a high enough refresh rate and are not bulky like some VR goggles that are actually two small wearable LCD monitors. LCD glasses have been around for several years now and there still isn't a way to use them in linux, despite the fact that getting it to work shouldn't be that difficult. Maybe true 3d will be added to XFree86 servers once people start shelling out $4000+ for a 'layered LCD monitor' instead of $40 for LCD glasses. Then again, maybe not.

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