VizWorld.com

Under the feet of England there lie over 450 sandstone caves that previously belonged to nobles, lords, or butchers, and they’re rapidly deteriorating and collapsing around us.  A new project is using 3D laser scanners to create some amazing maps of these, immortalizing them in their digital glory.

As part of the Caves of Nottingham Regeneration Project, the Nottingham Caves Survey is taking 3D laser scanners into the depths beneath the city to photograph the caves, survey them with the scanner and note their condition. Many of these caves have major historical significance for Nottingham and for England – the earliest written record of caves beneath what was then a Saxon settlement dates to the year 868. The project aims to protect the caves, in the hopes that they won’t simply be forgotten and allowed to deteriorate.

I love the results, they look almost like Half Life maps with the photographic details mapped onto the scanned geometry.

via Mapping the Underworld: Digital 3D Cave Exploration | WebEcoist.

Graphics, Science laser, scanner

The massive laser-based stereoscopic TV from startup HDI, which we covered first here, has just made the impressive transition to manufacturing, putting it on track for an early 2010 release.

October 28, 2009 – Los Gatos, CA – HDI Ltd. announces it has entered into a manufacturing agreement to mass produce their proprietary 100-inch diagonal Laser-Driven 2D/3D Switchable Dynamic Video Projection Televisions. HDI Ltd.’s 2D/3D switchable system delivers a stunningly superior 2D image, with a 50% greater resolution than today’s digital cinemas, and derives its greater-than-high definition stereoscopic 1920 x 1080p “3D” image quality from two RGB laser-illuminated Liquid Crystal on Silcon (LCOS) micro display imagers. At full 1080p HD, the HDI Ltd. screen refreshes at 360 fields per-second on each eye, the fastest refresh rate on any mass produced television or projector.

You can get the full announcement at EnGadget.

Hardware 3d, hdi, laser, stereoscopic, tv

A new player has popped up in the 3D Television market, HDI of Los Gatos, showcasing a whole new take on the industry: Laser Televisions.

Now comes the next step, in this 100-inch screen. The colors are richer than anything else, because they come from lasers. The lasers are cheap. They’re low power, consuming just 1W each. Try that with your plasma. And it’s true HD. Not just 1080p, but 1080 Hertz.

Hit the link for the video report.

via Startup unveils 100 inch 3D laser TV – 9/14/09 – San Francisco News – abc7news.com.

Hardware 3d, laser, tv

A bit more information on the E&S 8k Laser Projector is coming out.  At the 2009 Conference on Lasers & Electroc-Optics/International Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/IQEC), (say that five times fast) later this week, they’ll be talking about the powerful fiber lasers behind the projector.  Unlike traditional projectors that use a light source behind an 2D LCD display, this projector uses a single 4K tall line of pixels powered by a laser, which can be quickly swept left-to-right to generate an 8k wide display.

World’s Highest-Resolution Projector, more information at CampusTechnology.

Hardware display, E&S, laser, projector