VizWorld.com

Brian Stelter and Brad Stone of the New York Times have a new article up, conveniently here on opening day of CES, about the new 3D Television push.  While content is slowly coming on-line via several avenues, the televisions and supporting hardware is still rather costly. I think this point sums it up quite nicely:

At that point, the question becomes whether consumers — many of whom have only recently upgraded to costly new high-definition sets — will want to watch in three dimensions enough to pay for the privilege. “I think 90 percent of the males in this country would be dying to watch the Super Bowl and be immersed in it,” said Riddhi Patel, an analyst at the research firm iSuppli.

But will the experience translate to other entertainment? Ms. Patel said, “You don’t necessarily want the ladies of ‘The View’ sitting around you when you watch them.

And that’s the big point.  It seems that almost all of the content that will be in 3D will be sports content.  While sports watchers are a very ‘energetic’ group, they are a minority of overall television watchers.

via Television Begins Push Into the 3rd Dimension – NYTimes.com.

Hardware 3d, nytimes, stereoscopic, television

While I still personally think that 3D TV at home won’t be big in 2010, that’s not stopping some big network providers from getting behind it.  It’s only the 5th of January, and we’ve already got a trio of big announcements.

First off, DirecTV claims they’ll be launching a single 3D TV channel with their newest satellite, using some of that yummy bandwidth to bring 3D sports and movies direct to your home.  Then, ESPN comes out with something similar, claiming they’ll be launching a 3D network in June.  Their kickoff event will be a big one too, the 2010 Soccer World Cup match.  Finally, not to be out-done, Discovery, IMax, and Sony have signed up to be equal partners in a new TV channel dedicated to 3D programming, but the kickoff won’t be until 2011.

While the press is good, is 3 channels really enough to bring 3D to mainstream?  If you look closely you’ll see a single theme: Sports.  While sports is big, I’m still not convinced it’s enough to make 3D big in 2010.  In 2012 maybe, after a few years of working out the kinks and getting some better (cheaper) hardware options, but not 2010.

Graphics, Hardware 3d, sports, stereoscopic, television

Magnetic3D will be at CES challenging the glasses-free stereo displays of Alioscopy with three new displays of varying sizes:

• Allura: 3D monitor (22″-55″) solutions for Public Display. These are designed for applications such as Point-of-Sale, Out-of-Home, Digital Signage Networks, and Trade Shows and Events.
• Emersa: 3D monitors (22″-42″) for applications that require close proximity viewing, including presentations, digital prototyping, gaming, and content creation.
• Envolve: 3D touch displays for real time and interactive active 3D applications for commercial use such as slot gaming, kiosk solutions, and way finders.

Details aside from that are lite.  They’ll be demonstrating software applications ‘VizCad’, for 3D digital prototyping and visualization, and ‘FuzionCast’, for digital signage.

Magnetic3D via Magnetic 3D to show new glasses-free 3D displays at CES.

Graphics, Hardware 3d, ces, lcd, magnetic3d, stereoscopic

An article in BusinessWeek backs up my predictions of 3D In the Home not making much of a splash in 2010, due to the high costs and lack of options.

But as much as consumers demand 3D in theaters, they may not quickly usher it into their homes. Making a living room theater 3D-capable can cost upwards of $4,000, a hurdle that even the most ardent 3D backers say may slow adoption. “We don't expect to see an explosion of 3D in the home until the 2012 time frame,” says Mike Fasulo, chief marketing officer for Sony Electronics, which nevertheless is betting its future on the technology. Sony is among the electronics makers that plan to introduce 3D-friendly TVs and DVD players at the Consumer Electronics Show, due to begin Jan. 7 in Las Vegas.

2012 seems realistic for what most people would call “successfull” deployment of 3D in the home, but only time will tell if consumer demand will last that long.  We had a 3D “Fad” back in the 50′s, remember?

via 3D TV: Not So Fast – BusinessWeek.

Hardware 3d, popular, stereoscopic

The internet is abuzz today about a report in the recently released “3D Display Technology and Market Forecast Report” where DisplaySearch, a market research and consulting firm, forecasts that 3D displays will become a $22B industry, with 64Million TV’s deployed by 2018.

The market for 3D displays—which is encouraged by the recent success of 3D cinema—is forecast to take off in 2010, providing a welcome boost to the electronics industry. “3D displays are taking off with consumers due to increasing availability of 3D content. In addition, 3D standardization has also been addressed or is being evaluated in several 3D organizations,” noted Jennifer Colegrove, Director of Display Technologies at DisplaySearch.

64Million seems like a lot, and if a sucker’s born every minute then they’ll have to sell one about every 5 seconds (ha ha, I made a funny).  By 2018, I’ld say it’s definitely possible, but mostly because a significant portion of existing consumers will have to go buy something to replace existing equipment.  What I take issue with is their prediction on the “Driving force” of 3D technology:

• Mobile phones will be the largest 3D display application on a unit shipment basis in 2018, with 71 million units with 3D capability.
• The largest screen size category for 3D display shipments will be 1-4.x”, due to demand from mobile phone and digital camera/camcorder applications. The second largest size range will be 40-49”, due to TV, public display and 40+ monitor applications.

While 3D is neat and all, I can’t envision any possible scenario where glasses-based 3D becomes popular on mobile phones or camcorders.  On camcorders would require 3D-capable recording functions, which are still very early in development and definately not ready for deployment to the masses.  On mobile phones, one has to note how people ridicule bluetooth headsets right now, and wonder what will happen to people wearing 3D glasses around all the time.

Maybe Back To The Future’s “3-D” was just ahead of his time?

3D Display Revenues Forecast to Reach $22B by 2018; 3D-Ready TV Shipments to Reach 64M Units – DisplaySearch.

Hardware 3d, displays, stereoscopic

The 3D scanning effect that brought us radiohead’s “House of Cards” video is now within the realm of us mere mortals thanks to the work of Kyle McDonald.  In a new project on Instructables, he shows how to connect a projector and 3 cameras together to great a great low-cost 3D scanner.

You’ll need a camera, a projector, and some open source software to process the image data. Using these simple tools, [Kyle] turned out much better video than before. Take a look after the break to see his results from scanning at 60 fps using a PS3 Eye. The trick to this setup is getting the correct synchronization between the projector and the camera, something that could be improved with a bit of extra hacking.

The trick is that the projector casts a cosine pattern onto the field which can then more easily be picked up by the 3 cameras and triangulated to create geometry.  It requires a very detailed synchronization between the projector and the cameras & software, but the results are impressive.

See some demonstration results after the break.

Structured Light 3D Scanning. via HackaDay

Read more…

Hardware, Science 3d, projector, scan

The New York Times asks the question: “Which 3D glasses are best?”. The answer to the question is important because Hollywood and theater owners are trying to lure people away from their high definition televisions and back into the theaters. If you control the infant 3-D market for glasses in movie theaters, there is the chance that you can be extremely profitable. There could be an even larger market in the making since 3-D televisions are just coming out.

RealD and Master Image 3D are two companies that make passive circular polarized glasses that cost about 65 cents apiece. It works by having a filter sit in front of the lamp of the projector. This filter oscillates 144 times a second switching the image between clockwise circular polarization (for the right eye) and counter-clockwise circular polarization (for the left eye). The passive glasses have filters so that the right eye has clockwise circular polarization, and the left eye has counter-clockwise circular polarization.

Dolby Laboratories makes passive glasses that cost about $28. The glasses work in conjunction with a special filter wheel installed inside the projector. This filter wheel removes the wavelengths of the light spectrum meant for the left eye only, leaving the right eye to see those wavelengths meant for it. As the wheel spins, it then removes wavelengths of the light spectrum meant for the right eye only, leaving the left eye to see those wavelengths meant for it. The passive glasses have filters so that the right eye only sees its wavelengths, and the left eye its wavelengths.

XpanD uses active LCD shutter glasses to produce a stereo effect. These glasses cost about $50 apiece.

One technology not mentioned in the article is the stereoscopic system used in IMAX 3D, simply Linear Polarization.  While linear polarized glasses are cheap, they suffer from usability problems.  While circular polarization remains constant as you turn your head (clockwise remains clockwise no matter how far you rotate your head), linear does not.  At a 45-degree angle (just lean your head to the right) you see both images with both eyes simultaneously, and just a slight rotation (normal breathing or head-tilt) can be enough to cause the two images to blur and ghost together.  Frankly, I’m amazed that IMAX hasn’t upgraded to circular polarization.

Which technology will triumph? Likely it will turn out to be that which gives the movie theaters the highest profit margin. Does it cost more to view circular polarized glasses as disposable, or to try and keep high-cost active shutter glasses in the theater?

Personally, if I was a theater owner, I would buy the 65 cent disposable glasses and charge an extra dollar on the ticket for them, thus making a profit. Since they are plastic, if people left them behind, I would wash them at the end of the day and reuse them.

It is well worth it to read the entire article at the New York Times: A High-Tech Movie Battle: Which 3-D Glasses Are Best?

Hardware 3d, movie

ArsTechnica has a review of the upcoming V-Screen for the Sony PSP, which brings a simple pseudo-3D effect to the handheld portable.  It’s based on a theory from Tom Kopke, who discovered that a simple Fresnel Lens in front of the display creates a fake 3D effect by adjusting the focal distance.

“This all got started when Tom Kopke mentioned that it might be possible to have a flight simulator display with a more realistic, 3-dimensional sense of depth by mounting a fresnel lens in front of the monitor.This sounded implausible to me at first… but Tom is a physicist who works on simulator display systems for the U.S. Navy so I had to take his proposition seriously,” Rick Lee writes in an explanation of the effect. “[Kopke] explained that the lens allows you to view the monitor with your eyes focused out nearer to infinity instead of two feet in front of your face…. In the science of simulation, this is called a ‘collimated display.’”

Several stores sell the lenses, which retail for as little as $20.  Wikipedia has a great writeup on Collimated Light if you want to learn more.

via $40 gets you stereoscopic pseudo-3D on the PSP. No… really.

Hardware, Science 3d, display, lense, stereoscopic

Last week Band Pro Film & Digital offered a free all-day seminar on stereoscopic 3D, including several companies in the industry offering equipment and services.  Silicon Imaging was there demonstrating the SI-3D camera nd software, as well as Cineform talking about their compression-based workflow and Neo 3D Image Development Subsystem.  Steve Crouch from Iridas was on hand as well:

Steve Crouch from Iridas began by talking about how tedious it can be to work with RAW and stereoscopic images. “People don’t understand RAW,” he noted, showing a RAW image. “With CineForm, the amount of data is small compared to uncompressed RAW DPX file.” He also noted that Iridas has been “supporters of Silicon Imaging from the beginning.”

StudioDaily has a great writeup on the whole event.

via Studio Daily Blog » Band Pro’s Stereoscopic 3D Seminar.

Hardware 3d, stereoscopic

Avatar made $73 Million in it’s opening weekend in the US, and over half of that was in the 3D version provided by RealD.

We congratulate our colleagues at 20th Century Fox on the tremendously successful release and spectacular campaign for ‘Avatar’” said Michael V. Lewis, Chairman and CEO of RealD. “This landmark weekend with over half of the box office coming from RealD-equipped theaters demonstrates that audiences have both discovered and are becoming loyal fans of RealD’s new generation of 3D.”

A good sign of more and better 3D films coming to theaters in 2010.

via RealD Delivers Over 50% of Domestic Avatar Gross – ComingSoon.net.

Graphics, Hardware 3d, avatar, movie, reald, stereoscopic