In Tokyo today, Sony unveiled a 3D display that can be viewed from any direction. No glasses required, and several users can see the 3D images simultaneously from various angles. Snip:
The cylindrical display case is 27 cm tall with a base of 13 cm in diameter, and features a 96 by 128-pixel resolution that looks better than might be expected. The screen displays 3D objects including a cartoon character, car, globe, and people. Sony created these objects either in 3D on a computer or by taking photographs of them from various angles. The result is that the objects appear to have depth, and can be viewed from any angle on the horizontal plane by walking around the display screen.Sony's keeping details under wraps, and hasn't explained how it works. We do know that it uses an LED light source, and that Sony claims it took about three years to develop the two demo models shown off today. The company has no immediate plans to commercialize the device, but a rep says they will develop versions with larger displays within the coming year.
More: physorg, Network World TV. (via @GreatDismal)
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it's finally starting to feel like the future i was promised.
-T
I'm guessing probably a lot like this...
http://gl.ict.usc.edu/Research/3DDisplay/
I can't wait to bring my friends over to plan our attack against the Death Star.
If Sony keeps to their usual pattern, they will try to keep everything about this proprietary, someone will develop an alternative 3D display that costs half the price and isn't proprietary, and in 20 years this will be remembered like betamax.
Its still pretty cool though. :)
I'm pretty sure that these are not new.
I saw one last week at the O2 done in London. I saw an earlier version of the same system at the Waitrose in Canary Wharf. Once you see them up-close it's pretty easy to see how they work.
First of all, the reason why they are cylindrical is that there's a 2d display with a directional filter inside it spinning round at about 15 revolutions per second. That's just enough to create a Persistance of Vision illusion but not enough to shake the machine apart.
The display is set up in such a way that it can only be seen when it's pointing directly at you (this is the clever bit... the optics), and as the device rotates the image on the screen is constantly updated. This creates an image of an object inside the cylinder as you walk around it.
it's not a true 3d image since moving up and down does not have the same effect.
It's a neat trick but it will never catch on because these things cost way too much to make, and I bet they keep breaking down.
ugh, there is nothing special about that. it looks sweet but its far from a secret how they made it. Robulus knows whats up, its just something spinning in there.
Most likely its a small multi-color LED display thats only viewable from exactly head on (like old laptop screens :-D), it spins inside a clear cylinder fast enough so you can't see it, a different frame of the 3D model is shown every few degrees of rotation. Due to the narrow viewing angle you only see the image as the screen is pointed right towards you, at which point its displaying the correct image for you to see.
yay Sony
Strange that the resolution is given in 2d as 96x128 and not 3d.
I would expect the 2d resolution to be rotated or used in some other 3d trick to provide the 3d image.
If the image is truly 3d then there should be a 3rd dimension granularity.
Robulus and Finchypoo are probably right, but I'm holding out hope that Sony has figured out a way to do this through optics and without a ridiculously-high-RPM spinning device. Accomplishing this with no moving parts (or at least not moving parts that require automotive maintenance and calibration for safety) will go a long way toward making it commercially viable.
I can't wait to bring my friends over to plan our attack against the Death Star.
Funny you should say that:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/06/usc-lab-creates/
yea, The whole spinning aspect makes it kind of a delicate technology.
If you look closely you can see vertical bands moving across the images in the video, it looks like the same effect you get filming a propeller or wheel spinning.
I'd like to be wrong though, this stuff is seriously cool.
Also if you knew the position of a single viewer you could have an anamorphic display system. That's true even of a flat screen.
Sony thinks they are being all secretive, but it's terribly apparent from the video that this is just an array of spinning RGB light sources.
"A good display for educational purposes..." hahah right - bring on the pr0nz!
As a kid hot for 3D in the 1950s I quickly concluded it didn't add that much. You can only go hyperstereo and have things come out of the screen a few times before it gets old. A good story with a good director and a fine cast wins for me.
If you've seen a recent 3D movie, how much of it did you remember the following week or even the next day?
Worst flick ever was Bwana Devil followed closely by the 3D Creature From the Black Lagoon.
I liked House of Wax but Vincent Price carried the load. Without him it would have been blah.
Seeing this made me go watch a bunch of Jason Lee's Youtube videos again. That guy rocks. Why are his graduate student level demos (from pre-Microsoft days) more impressive to me than this Sony demo? What's going on, Sony??
It's definitely a rotating drum. When you watch the video, you'll see tale-tell sign of the flickering image because the arm is rotating at a different speed than the camera is sampling the image.
Can't wait for the 3D web!
I suppose they'll have to make more pictures for the update of Goatse dot cx...
Why the cartoony critter? The thing they should display is the spinning head of young Michael York groaning: "There is no Sanctuary! ... All frozen! ... An old man! ... All ruins!"
I am amazed they didn't have Princess Leia as the first image displayed
seriously Sony, you had an iconic pop-culture moment to create and you let it slip
this being said, don't get your fingers caught in the spinning screen when you try to reach out and touch your pokemon
And of course I meant Johnny Lee. Not Jason Lee. Although Jason Lee has his moments.
Yeeesh. Another volumetric display. I remember seeing these 30 years ago. What's the point?
Seems very similar to the Actuality Systems display. Did Sony buy them or are they just paying them licence fees?
(They have a patent on this kind of spinning semi-transparent screen 3d-display) I remember being amazed by their display 10 years ago.