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Graphics Software

High-res Volumetric 3D Display Prototype 176

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isn't-that-special dept.
Gregg Favalora wrote in to plug his company Actuality Systems, Inc., which is working on a 90 voxel (8 color!) volumetric display. Could be useful for stuff like air traffic control. Or playing that chess game that we saw in Star Wars. Its not even a finished prototype, I'm actually posting this 'cuz I'm curious what uses people could think of for something like this.
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High-res Volumetric 3D Display Prototype More

High-res Volumetric 3D Display Prototype

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  • Re:Design Issues (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Their images conveniently don't show one of the major drawbacks of this type of display: You can see right through the objects.

    The device doesn't know where your head is so it can't do hidden surface removal. Surfaces behind the frontmost just shine through. There have been other technologies that work similarly (that essentially place a colored dot somewhere in 3D), but this "shine-through" problem tends to be too disturbing for human viewers.

  • You should check out FSV [mit.edu]. It uses openGL to represent part of (or all) your filesystem. It uses volume to represent file/directory sizes. It's great for seeing where all that HD space goes.

    --
  • um... are you saying that x, y and z can't be used as dimensions because I can't be at (1,1,1) and (2,2,2) at the same time?
  • Duh, I was thinking about it from the wrong perspective.
  • Only my JPEGs understand me.
  • The thing looks pretty cool, uses normal light as opposed to lasers, but the only stuff they have on their site as far as screen shots go are picutres of employees playing guitars and the like. Still, 90 Million voxels is pretty sweet. I'd love to see a demonstration of that thing
  • This would be great for something like visualization of network traffic and perhaps for security analysis. The ability to turn raw IP address, ports, time, and amount of data into something visual would be phenomenal. It is done to a limited extent today, but I think this would provide a much needed new light on the subject.

    I remember seeing something on beyond 2000 a while back about a security organization somewhere in Europe that was developing a method of analyzing data by creating an interconnected 3D mesh of objects. The display was on a flatpanel of course, this would make something like that much more useful.
  • Here [titech.ac.jp] is an example of a 3D filesystem viewer. Something like this would be very useful, I wish someone would finish this one.
  • use it sort of a lava lamp kinda deal. But instead of it having gobbs of gup like lava lamp, have real time rendering of new-clear explosions.

    That would be cool as hell as an xmms plugin.

    :-)
  • Hey, I'd love to have one of those but I'm going to have to wait till they come down in price a little bit.
  • In structural biology labs it is common to see an SGI machine with 3D glasses. Basically the 3D glasses are LCDs that alternate the transparency for each eye while coordinating it with slightly different on screen images. Much higher resolution than what we have here.

  • No, he was drinking out of a klein bottle.
    Harsh stuff.

  • ... and maybe their restrooms don't get cleaned often enough. What's that got to do with whether or not they can do what they claim? Maybe having a slashproof server isn't as high up on their list of priorities as doing actual product development.
  • Here is another instance of science fiction predicting the future. In Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" there was a stereo-tank (it's been a while, I can't remember if this is exactly what it was called) that has an uncanny resemblance to the device described in this article.

    Now if only everyone would join a polygamist marriage and stop wearing so much clothing.
  • then, use a motion-sensitive glove to 'finger' through the topology to get to the object you want to manage.

    With this particular display, you really don't want to put your hand into the topology! Don't forget there is a glass pane rotating in there at 600rpm...

  • It could display DeCSS code...IN 3D!

    DVD's aren't even 3d yet which means DeCSS would not only break DVD "encryption" it would also further the humiliation by becoming technically superior.

    I'm forking away from the LiViD project. Anyone who wants to join me in building 3DeCSS drop me a line.

    =-Sonic

  • As some have mentioned, it's already in a dome, so you can't stick your hand in if you wanted to. Furthermore, if the dome is a vacuum you get rid of both air resistance and a lot of the noise. A magnetic rotation system would further reduce the noise. I'm sure they've gone to great lengths to make it as safe (and also protected) as possible, as well as noise-free.


    And as far as the vacuum being a problem to do, well, what do you think is inside your CRT?


    You seem quite confident from having read the article. Thinking about what you read is, of course, the next step before posting. :)

  • Volume as size is kinda a bad idea. Sometimes really big files aren't that important. (Big tar files or packages or something) But little files often are (.login, makefiles, and so on) It would be hard to find your makefile if the executable is hiding everything or something...

  • Volume=file size?!?! My God, you'd need a nuclear plant just to view your Win2000 %systemroot%.

    C:>cd winnt
    (lights dim)
    "Alert! Meltdown condition! Alert!"
    C:\winnt>cd system32
    (lights out)
    "Core Explosion! Repent Sins."
  • Nope, it's not about where one specific object can be. The problem is: a pixel can be at (0,0,10), and another pixel can be at (0,0,11), at the same time. However, you cannot have a pixel at (0,0,blue) and (0,0,red) at the same time.
  • Hmm, I may have formulated that a bit unclearly. It's not about any one specific pixel. It's just that you can have a 3d image with a dot at (0,0,10) and in the same image a dot at (0,0,11). However, you cannot have (0,0,green) and (0,0,pink) in the same image.
  • Colour cannot be seen as a dimension, unless a pixel can be both blue and red at the same time...

    Time otoh....
  • I once spoke to a derivatives trader. - As a side note -- derivatives are tradeable securities that are synthesized by combining other also "tradeable" securities. As you can imagine the market forces that drive the price of these tools are extremely complex. Anyway, this derivatives trader told me that they use coloured 3D models to model how any particular derivative is doing... like If it looks like a donut - its a sell but if its long and fat like a (Canadian) football its a strong buy... Anyway this would be a kinda cool application for this display. Plus if it makes derivatives trading easier you could stick the trading companies for a huge amount of cash!!!

  • hah--just a couple minutes ago I was watching "pushin tin"(john cusak, billy bob thorton as air traffic controlers) at one point they use a spiffy 3D thing to show what is going on in the guys heads
  • Like in Hackers? If so I better go buy some rollerblades.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So this is like Nicodeamus' "magic whirly thing" from the kids' cartoon movie, "The Secret of NYMH?"
  • From the 3D modleing perspective, it could be highly useful, but then most good modelers have developeed the ability to visualize the object(s) they are modeling very well...good modeling requires technical and creative problem solving. It might be better suited to showing advanced model concepts or "proofs" for critique and review before going further into character development and animation. I can see it being most useful on very detailed & complex objects, especially when a team of modelers is involved.

    At the resolution they are developing right now, tho I don't see much adoption by the 3D animation world except in very big houses, and even then mostly as a toy or proof of technology. Before it really becomes useful it will have to support much higher resolution, color depth, and have extremely fast updates for interactive feedback to whatever control system is driving it. Like the 3D printers... great future but a long long way to go before they become very useful and prevalent in the 3D entertainment industry.

  • ...is in the pudding. Show me one and I'll give my opinion. Without a demo model of any sort, my opinion is "Vapour Ware!"
  • maybe it will put an end to those hidden-surface
    removal algorithms.
  • Does anybody remember that Texas Instruments tried this a few years ago? They had the spinning screen inside a closed container upon which they projected an image. It didn't go over very well, since it needs a good sized, noisy motor to keep that disc spinning, along with the necessary motion of the optics. Who wants to work with a display that sounds like a laser printer, and breaks down just as much?
  • The first thing that any technology is widely used for: pr0n. The internet, DVD's, etc...
    --
  • File management?!?! You gotta think bigger. Network topology and system administration. A full objectoriented model of your network topology where each object contains administration objects, device objects, account objects, you name it... then, use a motion-sensitive glove to 'finger' through the topology to get to the object you want to manage. It could be used to report system outages, and the works....

    Now, if they could only make one big enough to sit in.... VR here we come.
  • Wasn't that display just a 2 color display? We'd be more advanced than them!
  • I'm actually posting this 'cuz I'm curious what uses people could think of for something like this.

    So, we have to rack our brains, thinking of ideas, wasting valuable time and energy, JUST to appease Taco's curiosity? HA! I think not! Now slashdot's agenda is clear...


    --

  • What a great idea- submitting your own corporate site to slashdot and not first making sure it will survive being linked to.

    With this kind of foresight, I'm sure the company will go far...

  • [...]
    [R]emember, this is not something that is TANGIBLE, this is just a hologram, and a real hologram, like something you would dimply walk through.... there is no real mass

    You could make a real mess though.

  • ...users can actually walk around the display to inspect the imagery from 360 degrees.

    So, instead of sitting at a workstation, and being able to rotate and manipulate a pseudo-3D image on my CRT, I have to get up and walk around, craning my head to see the object from a certain angle. Why?

    We see in 2D, for the most part. (I don't think there's _that_ much gain in taking advantage of depth perception. Heck, I get by with almost none every day.) So for scene reproduction, it's can't be much better than 2D. And I think the user-interface aspect of 3D displays is _worse_ than 2D.

    It's got huge Hollywood potential, but I don't see what real advantage this has over "regular" 3D graphics on a 2D display. Especially since the pseudo-3D display can have FAR higher detail and complexity than a real 3D display at a given price-point.

  • The company claims 90 million voxels, not 90 voxels. Although 90 million may not be that impressive (448 voxels cubed), 90 voxels (4.5 voxels to a a dimension) is next to useless. Assuming 3 bits per pixel, you'd need 32 Meg just to run the frame buffer. I wonder what the graphic chipset is like.
  • I just went to their site... "Resolution Breakthrough: Nearly 100 million voxels" No lasers. No goggles. Just a spinning screen target that they shine light on. It's almost too good to be true- the resolution's just too high to be "real".
  • If you play with the optics some, you can get away with a sealed dome assembly. Make it a vacuum container and drive the screen with a magnet motor. That will allow them to scale it quite a bit further. Not huge sizes, but allow it to be something manageable, about the size of a 19-21" monitor with no issues at all.

    I'm a bit amazed at the claim of only 8 colors. With a little work, these beasts could do truecolor. Talk about mind-popping...
  • We're just not using them in that manner yet.

  • I'm surprised no one suggested the obvious. This would be a great way to torment pets. Have the display throw up a 3-D image of a cat, and watch Rover freak out as he tries to catch it.

    Oh wait, is this the same system I read about a while ago that did its imaging on a reflective high-speed spinning helical surface? Then I guess it would end up turning Rover into mincemeat. Hey, I never said it was for tormenting pets you like...

  • Ever see Star Trek 3? There's a scene in the movie in a bar where these two people are playing a 3D dogfighting game. That's what came to mind when reading your post.

  • Games (Score:2)

    by jjr ( 6873 )
    I think gamers would love this. Reason being alot of them are looking for the next "new thing". I think think this is it. Give it about 3 years when it mature you will see this at your local gameroom.
  • Yeah, but does it do second generation transform and lighting, per pixel shading, full-frame antialiasing, and AGP texturizing?

    No? And it's only 450x450x450? Geez, I'll stick to my GeForce2 Ultra [nvidia.com] and a cheap-ass ViewSonic CRT.

  • That's actually a Tobacco Mosaic virus, iirc. The same archetypical representative virus that's depicted in just about every high school biology textbook ever printed.
  • Does anybody remembers an article (was it Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar?) about a 3-d volumetric display effected with a spinning mirror in front of a CRT ???

    The article even had diagrams for a vector display driver and assembler routines for 3D display...

    --
    Americans are bred for stupidity.

  • Maybe someone will come along and figure out a way to precisely position electro-magnetic disturbances within plasma, Neon, or other gas in a sealed vessel.
    It's not that far out...

    The Neonics company [signweb.com] makes a neon transformer that uses a standing wave to light a part of the tube, all controllable under software.

    So, I guess it's only a matter of time until the thing is translated into 3 dimensions...

    --
    Americans are bred for stupidity.


  • I can see a lot of uses of this in Research - specifically Nanotech, since its very difficult to picture how 3D objects get pieced together. This is especially true when complex geometry (helix, springs ) become the building blocks rather than primitives (cubes, spheres, cylinders,...).

  • I think your question is really "which is easier, and cheaper, now." The answer is clearly a 2D-based solution. But almost any infant technology is more expensive than the systems it improves upon. Even now, for example, LCD displays are significantly more expensive than CRTs, yet people still buy them, for good reason.

    Volumetric displays probably won't replace 2D displays for a long time, if ever, but I'll bet they'll have niches in which they're considered very useful. One such might be for collaborative work - having a group of people standing around a cube containing a 3D display.

  • Okay - this sounds cool, and it is impressive. But I don't see how this can help make drugs. I understand being able to visualize what the compound you are trying to make will look like, but can't that be done with cheaper off the shelf equipment already? What benifit would this have?

    As far as I can see this is going to be part of two possible markets - video games and science museums. The video game aspect is, well, pretty obvious - the science museum thing would be cool because you could use it to display exhibit A today and five minutes later you could be all ready to use it on exhibit B - Like maybe have a holographic model of a machine or something.

    I dunno - it is cool, but awful silly at the same time.


    Vote Nader [votenader.org]
  • How stupid of me!

    So, we are talking about something real - even though it is not. Much like the hologram of a magnifying glass in front of a bunch of medicine bottles - you move your phyiscal being around and the image that you see throught the magifying glass is what you would see if it was there.

    Hmmm. That makes a lot more sense to me now!

    Okay - I take back everything I said. I want one of these!


    Vote Nader [votenader.org]
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That's what dithering is for.
    You just need to be careful that you don't put dithers next to visable scan lines, plaids and stripes don't mix.
  • A drug researcher could put up an image of a protein that's a receptor on the surface of a cell. To get the cell to accept a medicine (either for ingestion into the cell or to block the receptor) one has to find/create a molecule that fits the 3-D shape of the protein. One use is to make easier the job of fitting together the 3-D puzzle pieces.

    It really gets fun when instead of directly blocking a receptor, one instead uses a large molecule which fits a neighboring receptor -- blocking the real target indirectly. Trying to find the proper fit for that situation is much harder...

  • ...making a real-life 3D display or making some kind of working VR setup? Note that anything on the 3d display will be "ghostly" - I don't want to be looking through the front of whatever object and seeing the backside of it too. Whereas a single 2d screen that can send different images to your 2 eyes, and that can sense where your head is (and also tell when you move the screen itself) is probably much cheaper.
  • Man, that would be great!

    EMUSE.NET [emuse.net]
  • I think a lot of people assume 3D shooters and such would be good for this, but I say RTS.

    Think of it, being able to gaze onto a virtual gameboard running AOE or Civ:CTP, or even a modernized Risk or Axis&Allies. I think this is a logical extension of the current boardgame. Instead of static pieces, you would have moving characters just like the star wars game. But add in the cool environment too. Mountains, water, etc.

    So what's that, a measly 500 teravoxels? :)


    _______________
    you may quote me
  • ...is display that hologram of Princess Leia from the first (at least released first) Star Wars.
  • What you've really got is a way to display 4 dimensions of data (3D plus color). There's lots of high-dimensional data sets in the world. The stock market springs to mind. Imagine looking at various ticker symobls and having price, volume, time, and delta (since start of day?) all shown at once.

  • We see in 2D, for the most part. So for scene reproduction, it's can't be much better than 2D. And I think the user-interface aspect of 3D displays is _worse_ than 2D.

    Yes, our eyes see in 2D with little depth perception (our eyes are too close together for much triangulation at focal distances).

    However, our HEAD is built for 3D. If you move your body one inch, your brain KNOWS how the scene should rotate or translate. And more importantly, vice versa: you rotate or translate the scene, it has the environmental context of the real world around the display, allowing you to judge angles and distances.

    Secondly, a static scene appearing in 3D would have no device-introduced latency between "I want to see it from another angle", and "I see it from another angle". This is one of the major reasons for spatial disorientation with 2D display systems: latency between command and result.

    The UI question, I don't think we've played around with enough. The "flying" UIs of virtual reality were just one step of an eventual flood of experimentation in 3-space user interfaces.

  • At the end fo the day, this is just a more compact version of the spinning paddle display tank MIT showed better then 15 years ago.

    I'd have to argue that it IS true three-D, though soem other posters are correct that the viewing angles are limited.

    Their misue of "volumetric" though is annoying. Volumetirc rendiring and the term 'voxel' both refer to a tchnique for representing 3D data and rasterizing the 3D data so represented. It says nothing about the display device.
  • If each voxel was a 1 mm cube, you could have a 44.8 cm cube. Sure, that's kind of chunky, but it's only a start. It's a long way from R2-D2.

    3D adds up fast, but static displays should not be that slow. If IDE cables can get 100MB/s... It's not like a 3D CFD problem, it's just a display.

    One day, we will quake to this.

  • It's just a rotating projection screen inside a dome. I've seen a similar concept, made with a panel of red LEDs rotating in a cylinder. The projection-screen idea ought to work better. It's going to be a big, clunky device, but it should work. Whether it will sell is another matter.

    Something similar, a vibrating-mirror 3D display, was tried in the 1980s. Ref: Mills, P.H., Fuchs, H. and Pizer, S.M., High-Speed Interaction on a Vibrating-Mirror 3D Display, Proc. SPIE: Processing and Display of Three-Dimensional Information II, Vol. 507, 1984, pp. 93-101. That became a product, but the product flopped.

  • The obvious use, other than the obvious Star Wars fodder, is in air traffic control. Those poor controllers are suffering information overload - maybe 3D visualization might help them out. Mind you, first they'd have to upgrade the systems to at least 1980s technology.

    --
    It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools.
  • Having a 3d image still can help with VR. You can use VR gloves/tools and get a better visual feedback.

    I'd rather have a holographic image that you can reach into for your manipulations, but even 3D feedback is a good start.

  • Imagine seeing ,from any angle and in 3-D, the process of puting something together. Something intricate and complicated. You could even zoom in on it and stuff :)
  • The sample picture at http://www.actuality-systems.com/product_main.htm [actuality-systems.com] has a virus floating in it that looks like the virus from "The Andromeda Strain".

    Geeks! This is just too cool! :-)

    John

  • Potential users include:

    + Scientists designing pharmaceuticals who need to quickly understand the 3-D shape of certain molecules.

    + Doctors who want to understand the location of a tumor within a patient's brain in a manner that enhances surgical planning.

     Hmm.. Strange.. No mention of 8-colour volumetric Porn?

  • We saw how useful this technology can be in the latest Bond movie when the doctor shows Bond the bullet in the bad guy's head.

    On Star Trek Voyager, the Doctor uses it to display scans, on Deep Space Nine they used it for communications purposes (as on Star Wars). There's plenty of good applications.
  • In the world of Sci-Fi, is this what is commonly known as Holotechnology? Or is that different somehow?

    If not, soon we may have Holodecks like on Star Trek. I mean, your hand would go right through the images, but it would still be cool and good for REALLY 3d games!

  • Actually, you read my mind. The 3-D display's "proprietary rendering" algorithms relate to algorithms that are embedded in the display controller system. You'll never see them and you don't have to understand them (Fortunately!).

    The user (customer) will actually be able to run a large percentage of OpenGL(tm) code directly on the display with little alteration, as you mention. We just have to be very careful about claiming "OpenGL" compatibility, etc., etc. But yes, lots of GL apps should be easily configured to run with the display. From the user's point of view, it's just a monitor...

    (From a founder of the firm.)

  • Better yet, think of the money you can save on clothing! You can walk around naked, with a hologram of the latest fashions! Your clothing could be updated and upgraded hourly over the net! This could bring into existance a new type of buisiness... the fashion service provider! But then clothing would probably be covered under the DMCA...

    "Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
  • Having worked on Computer Aided Moleculer Modeling rigs at CIBA (old E&S vector displays with funky goggles that used blink-based 3D), there is obviously a LOT you can do with a display like this: get a team of mad-science Pharma PhD gathered around a molecule, and poke into the interesting bits. Animate it. Unfold it. Make it jiggle. Enlightenment is thus facilitated.

    I mean, for an industry that is going to dwarf IT in a few years, this is pretty big step forward. I could see a lot of smaller R&D companies wanting this technology, and it could help level the playing field when it comes to innovation in an industry dominated by giants like Ciba-Sandoz and Merck.

    So this may be too expensive for a toy (unless your name is Bill), but there is a lot of ways you could use a holograph to help in processes that require modeling of spatial relationships.

    Other uses:
    - 3d modeling for entertainment... do any hardcore Maya people want to play with this toy?
    - arcade games (obviously not for the first coupld of generations)
    - military and space applications (more ways to present complex information = worth paying for)
    - a VERY funk disco-lava-kaleido-globe that will awe the ladies and set the 'right' mood. (I *did* say enhance your special relationships with models, didn't I?...)

  • Seriously, would you buy a monitor that only displays 90x90? Right, you'd wait until something better comes out! Same thing goes with this: until it gets better and cheaper, it's just a techie tinkertoy. Unless you're filthy-rich and wouldn't mind seeing this thing slip into obsolescence (see also: ENIAC, UNIVAC, Intergraph, and that Origin 2000 being sold by Id), just wait until this milestone gets overshadowed by the next advance in this technology.

    Until that time, there's still good-old hardware accelerated 3D, rasterized to fit your standard monitor.

  • Build and view the model of a room you want to simulate the acoustics of (note... must have surround system too). If you leave out the acoustics, you have the virtual site tour that all real estate agents already think you can put on a web site.

    Really, there are probably a number of CAD applications that could benefit somewhat from this. This way, you wouldn't have to change your virtual point of view; you could just change your real pov (wait... is that an advantage? :)
  • OK, I'm sure a few of you out there watched Robotech growing up. There was an episode where Max and Mirya fight on a simulator that pops up in from of them in 3 D. That's the game I'd want to see.

  • Yes... but the manipulation controls are SO hard to use
  • My guess is the military is keen to back this one (see the front-page image).
    Mind you, the size of the domes isn't exactly huge initially [pic [actuality-systems.com]].

    A quick search on IBM's Patent Database reveals [ibm.com] reveals that The navy has some patents regarding 3D volumetric displays already and also shows the tech details behind the volumetric display used by these guys (One of the founders has patented the mechanism [ibm.com] used)

  • Big whoop. 3D is old hat. Develop a display which allows you to visualize 4d or higher with a generalized Rieman metric, then we'll talk.

  • Re:Design Issues (Score:3)

    by FigWig ( 10981 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:57AM (#731664) Homepage
    What's funny is that sega had a video game that did this about 8 years ago. I played it at disney land. Very cheesy game, but same basic tech. Can't remember the name....
    Google to the rescue - it was called Hologram Time Traveler.

    Here's a related link [atarihq.com]

  • 90 megavoxels is on the small side these days (Score:3)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @02:18PM (#731665)
    The top end medical/seismic systems are running
    about 20 gigavoxels.

  • Deep video imaging, discuss. (Score:3)

    by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep@z e d k e p.com> on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:14AM (#731666)
    There's a few things I don't get about this, like how *big* is it? Are we looking at something the size of a large ashtray, or would I have difficulty stepping over the thing?

    Anyway, since no-one else has done it I'm posting a link to deep video imaging (http://www.deepvideo.com/) who make 'actual depth' flat monitors. And besides, they're based in Christchurch - Go Kiwis!!

    Dave :)

  • Uses in medicine (Score:3)

    by philip_bailey ( 50353 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:38AM (#731667) Homepage
    In medicine we spend a lot of time trying to view 3D structures by looking at 2D images and this sort of display system potentially could make things much easier. I've spent all day trying to look at people's hearts using X ray fluoroscopy (principles devised in the first half of the 20th century) and it's difficult to visualise what you're doing in 3D! Clearly in this situation real time 3D imaging would be tremendously helpful.

    Incidentally, "Actuality Systems" display system has 90 million voxels, not just 90!

  • That's 90M Voxels And A Lot Of Noise. (Score:3)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @12:38PM (#731668) Journal

    The thing has mirrors and stuff spinning at high RPMs. Unless they put some really sophisticated accoustic damping on it, it's going to have an annoying audio output of some kind.

    Sure it's cool, but it's really a brute force electro-mechanical approach. It's probably very expensive too.

    Maybe someone will come along and figure out a way to precisely position electro-magnetic disturbances within plasma, Neon, or other gas in a sealed vessel.

    Actually, I've been thinking that nano-projectors would really be the way to do this--ie, dynamic holography, something solid state. Each "projexel" would project a complete image. In fact, we could do this now. Just make a movie projector that fits within the volume of the lens. Cover a Jumbo-tron sized wall with them (yes, it would be very expensive).

    From a distance, you would see a *much* larger than life 3d image. The trick is building cheap solid-state nano-projectors so you can fit it in your living room. Is anybody working on that?

  • Re:Uses? 3D Porn. (Score:3)

    by NaughtyEddie ( 140998 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:02AM (#731669)
    The resolution is great but the response time sucks.

    --
    It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools.

  • Serious use: file management (Score:3)

    by plover ( 150551 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:34AM (#731670) Homepage Journal
    Picture the file system directory spread out across 3d space -- volume of the blob represents file size, color represents file type/contents, etc. Want to find out which runaway process just consumed your /users partition? Watch that blue blob growing real time.

    Now, if I can just convince managment that it's the same price as a 17" monitor...

    John

  • Re:Potential Uses (Score:3)

    by Paladin128 ( 203968 ) <aaron.traas@org> on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:39AM (#731671) Homepage
    What about other potential uses, like briefing the rouge squadron before they attack the death star?

    "Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"

  • 90 million isn't much (Score:3)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:16AM (#731672)
    90 million voxels isn't very far advanced yet. 90 million voxel means a 3d resolution of roughly 450x450x450. Think of this display as the 320x200 @ 256 color displays of 3d era. This is very low resolution.

    But, I think it is a good first step, just like early vga (and ega, cga before them) was.

  • Re:Serious use: file management (Score:4)

    by nikh ( 123374 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:50AM (#731673)
    Picture the file system directory spread out across 3d space

    "It's a UNIX system!"

    :-)

    Nik.

  • Uses? 3D Porn. (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:26AM (#731674)
    Amen.

  • Re:Am I dumb or something? (Score:5)

    by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:38AM (#731675)
    I suspect anyone who's ever worked with a complex model using a high-end 3D graphics visualization program would recognize the benefit of something like this. Manipulating 3D objects on a 2D screen, with or without 3D goggles, still leaves a lot to be desired.

    Take a look at some of the pictures on this page [inspirepharm.com] to see some examples of the kind of images I'm talking about. Or, if you have some spare time, download IBM's open source viz program, OpenDX [opendx.org], and play with it (warning: time consuming business, this isn't your typical end user app.)

    One of the benefits of a volumetric display is being able to move your head or body and actually see the object from a different angle. Humans are intuitively programmed to be able to understand the 3D objects that we interact with in real life, and cues like what happens when you move your head are important. Dealing with a 2D representation of a 3D object, some of this is inevitably lost.

    For a concrete example of this, run a game like Doom and position your character near a window. If you move your (real) head from side to side, the view outside the window doesn't change. This isn't realistic, and gives a misleading impression of the relationships between objects on the screen. When the objects are unfamiliar ones, like the innards of a virus, this makes a difference to one's intuitive grasp of the object's structure.

  • Design Issues (Score:5)

    by ottffssent ( 18387 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @10:02AM (#731676)
    What people seem to be forgetting (or perhaps you didn't even read the article?) is the way the image is created. There's a screen rotating at 600RPM about a vertical axis, and the projector sticks an image on it every 1/20 second. You can't step inside it or reach inside with VR gloves to move stuff. In short, it's a 3D image, *NOT* a hologram.

    There are some drawbacks to the design. First, at a certain size, the air resistance at the outer edges of the whirling screen will necessitate stronger materials, larger motors, etc. and it will very quickly become a big, noisy beast. Secondly, unless there's some very careful tinkering with the projection equipment, the voxels at the center are updated as often as the ones on the outside, resulting in squished (about the axis) voxels at the center and elongated ones along the outside. To make each voxel the same size, the refresh rate has to be proportional to the distance from the central axis.

    I'm not saying it's not excellent tech, but it will be expensive to make it stable, properly proportioned, and quiet.
  • Yep, that's 90 megavoxels. But before you get too excited, that's about a 600x600x250 pixel display. In 8 colors. So what we have here is the first 3D EGA monitor. :)

    You need truly frightening numbers of voxels to do anything really interesting. I've done heat transfer simulations that crippled a SGI supercomputer for only a 30 cm tall by 50 cm wide tank filled with fluid. Shame the oil tanks we *wanted* to simulate were 10 meters high and 15 meters across...

  • That's 90 MILLION voxels (Score:5)

    by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:29AM (#731678) Homepage Journal
    will provide the highest resolution volumetric 3-D imagery in the world. Multicolored images, comprised of over 90 million 3-D pixels called "voxels," will seem to float within its transparent viewing dome. And I thought the Chess game was originally on WestWorld. There's also a concept graphic of the display dome on the company's homepage [actuality-systems.com].

  • Re:Uses? 3D Porn. (Score:5)

    by slashbrent ( 102855 ) <gitbrentNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:35AM (#731679) Journal

    We already have this technology.

    It's called girls.. and my god, have you seen the resolution?! Wooooooohhhh says Neo.

  • *gesturing at the floating display* (Score:5)

    by bricriu ( 184334 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @09:28AM (#731680) Homepage
    ... Many Bothans died to bring us this information. :)

  • Just a quick note from one of the founders of the 3-D display firm.

    Seems to be some confusion about the resolution of the device we're working on. The 3-D display creates imagery by projecting onto a rotating screen; it projects (at least) 200 2-D images, each of a resolution of approx. 768 x 768. Persistence of vision fuses all of these "slices" into a 3-D image.

    Note that the images are stacked radially, like slicing a pizza - not linearly, like a deck of cards.

    I hope you enjoy the site... We're working hard over here to have something ready for demonstration; we'll try to put actual photographs on the web some day soon.

    Gregg Favalora

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