Carnegie Mellon’s Waterfall 3D Display

Projecting images onto water isn’t exactly new technology, but the resolution capable in this new implementation from PEter Barnum, Srinivasa Narasimhan, and Takeo Kanade enables true 3D visualization with actual depth.  The screen is comprised of 50×60 matrixes “dripped” from tiny stainless steel needles, arranged four-layers deep and slightly offset so that front layers do not obscure back layers.

“A single projector, by quickly switching between images, can display on different layers at different times,” says Barnum. “Anything you can have with a computer, like images, text, movies, or anything interactive, you can have on the drop display.”

This, along with several other new technologies, will be presented at SIGGRAPH later this month.

via Water droplets create multilayered display – tech – 01 July 2010 – New Scientist.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.