No-Glasses 3D

[Brandon B]

Saw this demoed at my work today:

http://www.x3d.com/PRODUCTS/default.html#

They showed us the 50" plasma. Have to say, it was pretty spiffy. The 3d dimensionality was very good. Worked best at about a 15' range, up about 8'. Object looked to come out of the screen well over a foot (pretty good for a 50" display). Objects were very solid seeming and very plainly out of the screen, even more so if a live object was placed in front of the display to provide something to key in on, depth-wise (like someone's hands grabbing at the objects).

Uses a patented screen technology and prepared media. They were using 8 "views" of the 3d portions of the media so as you shift sideways there's a "ripple" zone where it rolls over again every couple of feet or so (dependinng on viewing distance). They can increase the number of views to 24 to widen these zones.

Looked far better than a lot of mediocre 3d, definitely a watchable system. Some of my coworkers got a little wonky-headed after watching a while. Didn't bother me at all though (I have no problem watching combat flight games over people's shoulders, so I am not really prone to that kind of visual distress.)

They are looking at placed advertising as their initial marketing push, but I think the killer app would be PC gaming, and they are exploring this as well. Definitely a next step in that area now that we have resolutions and frame rates that are getting close to satisfying most gamers. It can work with Direct X, so existing games would port pretty easily.

Because it requires a screen overlay (and 1:1 pixel mapping of the media) to achieve the effect, it's not suitable for FP right now. It also sacrifices some resolution (to cover the different "views" of the object) and a portion of the brightness of the display (I believe they said they maintain more than half of the display's native brightness, don't remember the exact value). The 2D background elements maintain full display resolution though, and they are working to address the brightness drop.

I can very definitely see this being popular in a home environment, although not for general use. They are looking to try it with the new 70" plasma too. May go see that at their shop when they have it going.

This is a finished and shipping product, so maybe coming to a mall near you some day soon. Check it out if you can.

BB

[George Bellefontaine]

That's interesting, Brandon.




My Homepage!

[John Holmes]

I can see this catching on pretty quick. But, I don't see it being affordable by viewing the process. Very slick though.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[H.T.C]

I wonder if they got the patent for the non-glasses 3-d system from a company in upstate new york that sold monitors with that type of 3-d system built in and was marketing them 2-to 3 years ago.

If hdtvs start including this tech in tvs {all sizes} it just may become mainstream if they have a button to switch back to 2-d when they want too.




Robert

[Brandon B]

The system already displays 2D with no issues, except reduced brightness. No switching required.

BB

[Bob]

This sounds very similar a demo I saw a while back at one of the studios. If it is the same or similar, it was an effort to help surgeons who are doing operations via cameras.
The one problem that may never be resolved with 3D is the tendancy for it to cause motion sickness.

[Brandon B]

The rep mentioned they had bought the technology from people who were previously trying to market it as you describe. Quite likely it was the same exact thing you saw.

BB