3-D Monitors From Actual Depth 192
Klenex writes "True 3-D Visual Effects w/o the use of annoying '3-d' glasses or stereograms. Actual Depth "The Actual Depth monitor is actually two LCD displays stacked on top of each other. The LCD on top displays white transparently, so you can see through to the display beneath it, which is opaque." You need a dual head card or a 2nd video card to drive each display but this seems incredibly cool and it will work with any OS which supports dual monitors w/o any other hardware. Here's TechTV's scoop on the new technology. They even have a link to contact them about a demo in your area. I'd love to see one of these in action even though chances are I would never be able to afford one. Prices start around 6 grand, quite steep."
People have no imagination these days (Score:1)
Re:People have no imagination these days (Score:1)
Re:People have no imagination these days (Score:2)
12 years ago, I sold Amiga computers that boasted full color GUI interfaces for the OS.
There were many "IBM Users" with EGA and DOS Shell coming in saying things like: "Well..... I don't need THAT!"
These same kind of people come in years later with the "Hey, look what I can do with my computer" attitude when Windows becomes popular. You Mac users know what I'm talking about.
There will be the 'killer app' for this technology before you know it. It just might not be anything any of us can think of right now. I personally forsee 3D TV. The computer desktop is slowly becoming a media center anyway.
Re:People have no imagination these days (Score:1)
I didnt get a PC because they were shit. I still think they are shit, but i get paid more to code for them than i did for the PC.
I doubt that a 3d desktop will make computer haters hate them less, and i doubt they`ll make them more productive than 2d gui`s - or text based interfaces.
Oops! (Score:1)
Two layers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Two layers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Two layers? (Score:1)
Re:Two layers? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is amazing how effective parallax (a simple animation technique where planes further away move more slowly than closer planes) is at creating a 3D feeling. It would be even more effective on this type of monitor.
I think this could be extremely effective for fast games, although I agree that two planes probably isn't enough. Three might do it though.
I've seen one... (Score:2)
The one I used was touch sensitive and you could drag windows into the background layer. I remember thinking from the demo I had that I'd have no trouble making use of both layers.
I got to see other '3D' displays at Siggraph, and they were PATHETIC. Either the 3D effect required a little bit of imagination (i.e. it was distorted), or it required glasses. The two layer approach, though its only 2 layers, was very clean and didn't cause a headache.
I'd easily take it over the other '3D' displays they had, with the plus side that it is touch sensitive too.
I already have a 3D monitor (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I already have a 3D monitor (Score:1, Offtopic)
Cost? (Score:1)
Re:Cost? (Score:2, Informative)
Drool... (Score:4, Funny)
CRT? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:CRT? (Score:5, Informative)
The whole idea behind this is that certain pixels on the low layer get shaded by pixels from the upper layer. Now if you have a high enough resolution, and if the pixels fit exactly, then you get 3D (meaning: your left sees something else then your right eye).
This is because the shading pixel is not really on top of the underlying pixel, but a little bit left or right from it. This is the difficult part!
Don't forget that you don't see the depth just because it has two layers: you see it because the upper pixel and the lower pixel together produces two images: 1 for the left eye, 1 for the right!
If you do this with two screens that are not exactly matched you will most likely lose the effect of 3D.
Re:CRT? (Score:1)
Re:CRT? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm aware of the technique of putting a vertical grating on top of a screen to block every other line from each eye, then drawing the right eye image on the odd lines and the left eye image on the even ones, creating a 3D image. You seem to be talking about something like that, with the front monitor taking over the role of the grating. In that case, I think "This is the difficult part!" is an understatement. Can you explain further? Or are you talking about a different principle?
Re:CRT? (Score:1)
It still seems very limited (Half the resolution, angle issues...) and the article doesn't even mention this as a use. They seem to treat it simply as a Head Up Display.
Re:CRT? (Score:1)
This technique would also work with a regular screen with a grid of dots painted on the screen guard.
Re:CRT? (Score:1)
The technology of the roaring 90's (1890's) meets the technology of the twenty-first century. Just think, we all thought that we would get flying cars.
Seen it. (Score:2, Informative)
You missed the point.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The two layers isn't to produce a stereoscopic effect, they're an interface feature. The demo I saw was a guy using Windows with this device. The screen was touch sensitive and he could drag windows around with his finger and then push it into the background layer. You could get a lot more things on the screen with this device because the added layer gave you something to focus on.
They weren't marketing it as a 'watch tv in 3D!' gadget like everybody else, they were marketing it as a practical interface to Windows. (I think I remember the rep saying it'd work on any os, the demo was Windows though.)
Unfortunately, the article that Slashdot posted was misleading by calling it '3D'. It would be better to describe it as 'dual monitors with the form factor of only one monitor.'
Just to make a point, don't pass judgement on this device until you actually see it in practice. I was skeptical of it too until I saw the demonstration. Compared to the '3D Tvs' they had around the show, this thing was by far the clearest. The 'stereoscopic' monitors they had around the show floor were headache inducing. The slightest movement and everything would warble a bit. At least this particular monitor stayed clear.
Re:You missed the point.. (Score:2)
The screen I saw (just a point: I'm not sure if it's the same one in the article or not...) had about an inch or so distance between the foreground and background layer. This was enough distance that your eyes could focus in on one layer and focus out the other. That's the uniqueness of the monitor that cannot be simulated on one screen.
The foreground layer could be opaque or transparent. In the demo I saw, you could see through parts of Calculator.exe, but text on it WANST transparent. In other words, it was more like having an alpha channel for the foreground window as opposed to simply making it transparent.
It wasnt entirely clear how the transparency color was chosen, but I can tell you that the demo wasn't confusing. I wish I had a clearer memory of it from when I was at Siggraph so I could describe it in more detail. I was very impressed, though.
Re:You missed the point.. (Score:2)
The slight difference in depth just makes it easier for your mind to process the two layers separately. With simple alpha blending, two windows overlaid often just look like a mess.
Confusion.... (Score:1)
This is going to wreck havoc and cause major confusion for the clean-freeks between
us... Imagine trying to clean those nasty fingerprints in 3D..
I wonder what the moiré patterns caused by fingerprints would look like on
this screen..
Interesting (Score:1)
3D is the future? (Score:1)
HH
huh? (Score:1)
Afford? (Score:1)
"I'd love to see one of these in action even though chances are I would never be able to afford one. Prices start around 6 grand, quite steep."
Right now the prices may be high, but as with all the goodies, the prices are bound to fall.. and fall. When the company breakevens, the prices should fall, but it is really dissapointing to have such high priuce pegged initially. If the prices were lower, breakeven would be faster... anyways, this tech is cool, but what is being ignored comletely is the effect on eyes. I may be wrong but i do not think that any eye tests have been done! Already lotsa ppl in the IT industry are suffering from poor eyesight.. i wonder what this technology has in store for us?Re:Afford? (Score:1)
Anyone designing/producing a dual AGP motherboard yet? Is that possible or will the second have to be PCI?
Does this actually work? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does this actually work? (Score:1)
Did you see their address? Global Headquarters:
Deep Video Imaging Ltd. (New Zealand)
Airport Road
Mystery Creek RD2
Hamilton
New Zealand
Now I wouldn't put my savings in a bank on Crook's Road or trust a company on Mystery Creek to come with err... magic products.
Re:Does this actually work? (Score:2)
Re:Does this actually work? (Score:1)
Uhhh. Are you sure it's the same technology? I ask because another method of doing "naked eye" 3-D involves an LCD-like display which gives you different images depending on your viewing angle, so the left and right eye get different images assuming you aren't too far away from the screen. I don't know about today but in the past, having to calculate 6-9 images per frame (to cover all the viewing angles) was too hard to do in real time so they just showed still images. Or maybe they just didn't have the necessary support in popular applications for that rather odd mode of operation.
It sounds to me as though that might be what you saw in Paris.
Other links (Score:2, Informative)
An article [electronicstimes.com] in the Electronic Engineering Times.
Who's claiming this is doing 3-D? (Score:2)
What this monitor does do is lay a transparent layer on top of a regular LCD display. So its kind of having two monitors without moving your neck. Cool, but not 3D.
Re:Who's claiming this is doing 3-D? (Score:2)
These things only worked if you're not standing too close and not too far (a few metres) and DON'T MOVE YOUR HEAD! You'll get very dizzy and before you know it you're down on the floor:)
Re:Who's claiming this is doing 3-D? (Score:1)
Re:Who's claiming this is doing 3-D? (Score:1)
Ive seen hologram / photographic plates at a hamfest once laying flat on a table, illuminated with ordinary room lighting, but you actually DO see DOWN into the table - it was so astounding you want to reach under the table and check it out! Somehow it reconstructs a wavefront plane such that as you change your point of view you get a different image from that point of view, i.e., each eye does get a slightly different image.
* This idea copyright ©2002, Pat. Pending.
I'm not impressed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'm not impressed (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps because LCDs are already polarised [howstuffworks.com].
Really. [sait.ab.ca]
It's true. [toppoly.com]
woof.
LCDs, polarization, 3d (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I know how LCDs work, so bear with me - instead of using filters that polarize every pixel the same way, one could use filters that polarized every other line at 90 degrees to the previous. Now, manufacturing such filters and fitting them to LCDs is more expensive than current LCDs, but the advantage is that a simple pair of polarizing glasses (with one lens polarizing at 90 degrees to the other) would enable stereoscopic viewing of the LCD from any distance within the field of view of the LCD. I believe there is a company out there already claiming to have developed such displays, but I don't recall the name - they were touting their micropolarizer filter technology, anyhow, which is the hard part of making such a display.
-Isaac
Re:I'm not impressed (Score:2, Informative)
On the topic of 3D displays, while I was at GDC I checked out a projected 3D display, just like the IMAX solution. Still expensive. They also had a shutter glasses solution. The game was a skateboard game I forget which. Anyway, this setup was running a very high refresh, since it was on display after all, and I still walked away with an unpleasant twisting feeling in my brain after only five minutes of play.
It was cool while I was playing, but I think it would wreck you to do it steadily for an hour (or two or four...)
Maybe the interactivity has something to do with it - it might be more demanding on your visual system to play an interactive game than to watch a movie. Or to be that close. Or something. But I think usable 3D displays for gaming are still a long way away.
Only 2 levels of depth? (Score:1, Insightful)
Furthermore, with 3D glasses you get to see everything even if you're not exactly in front of the screen (think 'living room' with 10 people watching the same screen, some people will have tilted views). If your 3D TV is shaped like a hollow box, then the sides of the box will hide parts of the image for some people.
The only technology that could compete with 3D-glasses would be a transparent hollow box, or think R2D2 projection hologram. You still lose the range of depth you can get with 3D glasses (so you lose panoramas), but you gain a "stand in your room" effect which could be pretty cool in some cases.
3d-glasses, like rechargeable batteries, a great simple technology that somehow gets dismissed.
Re:Only 2 levels of depth? (Score:1)
Re:Only 2 levels of depth? (Score:2)
3D Stereo Driver (for 3D Glasses)
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=win
Some GF4 (PNY branded I think) cards come with them in the box.
Re:Only 2 levels of depth? (Score:2)
http://www.i-glasses.com/
Re:Only 2 levels of depth? (Score:2)
Enhance the image on the actual monitor then "look-thru" the head glasses for the 3D effect? OR, to have the source of the image on each eye projected from the actual head glasses?
I presume most glasses for gaming are the "look-thru" variaty.
Nvidia and Dimension do this already (Score:1)
Re:Nvidia and Dimension do this already (Score:1)
It's hilarious that these guys think they have something special. The DTI3D LCD's work on all Direct3D and OpenGL games to give you actual 3D, whereas these guys need stuff written especially for the hardware. This will not get past the commercial market if any.
Seen it in action (Score:5, Informative)
- You do have a "real" depth feel.
- you have to stand at a set distance from the screen (not too far, not too close)
- Don't move your head around too much, it gets blurry.
So yes, I was definatly stumped, but don't go spending your dollars yet is my advice. It's definatly cool but I don't feel it's all that ready either.
Re:Seen it in action (Score:1)
Re:...are you sure? (Score:2)
Are you sure that you weren't looking at an autostereoscopic display? That is - something that is true 3D, and uses lenticular lenses or similar to achieve the 3D. It is also something that is not very technologically advanced yet - resolution is very poor (typically half of a normal LCD, due to the tricks required to get stereo) and the stereo "sweet spot" is very small.
The product in question, however, is simply two LCD screens, one on top of the other, to give you "actual depth". There is nothing particularly 3D or stereo about it - simply that some objects can be positioned an inch behind other objects. The main use for this would be in the area of public touchscreen booths, etc. It may also be useful in ordinary desktop metaphors where (for example) the active window could be positioned an inch infront of everything else.. And more importantly - it has the advantage that it doesn't require you to hold your head in a certain position / distance.
Re:Seen it in action (Score:1, Informative)
obj dupe post (Score:1)
3-D Monitor From Deep Video Imaging [slashdot.org]
How hard is this? Perhaps with all the money you're reaping from these ads, you could hire some poor sap to search for dupes?
Re:obj dupe post (Score:1)
Old news, man (Score:2)
And the TechTV "scoop" is just so much guff. What kind of lousy review doesn't even show pictures of this thing in action? The cynic in me says that they've just copied-and-pasted from a press release...
Grab.
Re:Old news, man (Score:1)
you're right..it is a lousy review
Re:Old news, man (Score:2)
transparent windows (Score:1)
Re:transparent windows (Score:2)
Re:transparent windows (Score:1)
Hmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
The monitor may not require a special OS, but TechTV's review sure does.
3D Monitors will bring... (Score:1)
Re:3D Monitors will bring... (Score:1)
Are two different depths really enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Are two different depths really enough? (Score:2)
Sharp demonstrated this in '96! (Score:2, Informative)
Anyhow, the Sharp demo system worked and I wondered what had happened to the idea...
Booring... (Score:1)
Re:Booring... (Score:1)
Similarly, this is not just 2 Z-planes as people keep dismissing it, but a way to display a slightly different image to each eye, allowing our brain to construct a 3D image of something, exactly as it does in "real life."
For this to work, of course, the renderer theoretically needs to know exactly how far away your eyes are, and in what position (including how wide the space between them is!), in order to vary the images on the two displays in precisely the way needed to create the effect. This is borne out by the testimony of folks that you need to be a) a precise distance from the screen, and b) not move around too much.
So, if the display came with some sort of stockade-like head mount, those of us who aren't Mena Suvari could all experience the very real and true illusion of 3D, albeit uncomfortably.
YA3DS (Score:2)
Cute, but when can I go down to WalMart and buy one?
Software transparency... (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is likely what you'd expect, except it's only 3D in that there are two flat planes for objects to be "projected" onto instead of one. Sure, having apps that would support this with depth-based widgets could be pretty cool, but I wouldn't get too excited. I'd be surprised to see this becoming a mainsteam hit.
Also, if someone could explain how this would benefit gamers (as stated in the article), I'd be keen for a response, coz I'm coming up blank. I can't see Quake being anything but confusing with this...maybe RTSes or RPGs that have sidebars with widgets?
What advantage? (Score:1)
Besides, It will be obsolete once they invent the elusive "Translucent Middle Screen".
I got myself one!!! (Score:1)
Dude, that must be something I've gotta be aware of
Anyways, that's sorta what I did with an old PC...
http://www.caicara.org/pumar/Projects/MP3_Hi-Fi_C
First commercially available multi-dimension? (Score:1)
Admittedly, it's only got 2 dimesions, but is a
hell of an improvement over that one dimensional
SOAB I'd been using beforehand.
Other multilayer displays (Score:2, Informative)
I also remember another device where a mono LCD used a colour CRT as a backlight. At the time (about 1985) this offered high black-and-white resolution, and the ability to display CMYK (inverse RGB, and black), which was quite interesting at the time. The CRT had a thick front plate, so the LCD was clearly 'floating' some way in front of the CRT image.
A holodeck, it ain't. Even quite modest volumes contain an awful lot of voxels. Think how many little cubes you get in a bag of sugar.
The magic of 3-D... (Score:1)
I've tried this device, (Score:5, Informative)
Traditional 3d hardware includes 3d accelerator cards, immersive-display goggles, stereoscopic LCD goggles, crystal-ball type volumetric displays, and the (theoretical) realtime hologram projector. But the problems those devices attempt to solve are almost completely distinct from what the ActualDepth display is meant for. (Well, except that a truely effective hologram projector could emulate any other display technology...)
The point of ActualDepth is to allow your computer to present you more visual information in the same space. If you run traditional software that's not aware of the special screen layout, you can just use the multi-monitor feature of the OS's gui system (in X11 they call it Xinerama) to assign some windows to the front screen and some to the back. That way you can look at both of them at once, and for instance can read the online manual for a game at the same time you play it full screen, or operate a 3d-modeller in the classic 4-way parellel projection while a textured preview of the object sits on the back display. Anything that you'd do with dual-monitors, you can do with this, but using less physical real estate, and, more importantly, with less time to focus your vision from one to the other. Both screens are centered in your field of view at the same time, so there's no looking back and forth nessecary.
It's likely that without modifications, your GUI interface will only allow the mouse to switch between screens by you dragging it across one edge of the screens, where it considers them seamed together. That is irritating and unintuitive, so you'd want to use one screen as more of a read-only device, showing useful data but rarely needing interaction.
Elsewhere, someone asked if this effect can be emulated in software just by alpha-blending on image on top of another. You could try this, but it wouldn't really work. At the points where the foreground image is solid (thick black text), the background will be completely obscured. But with "actual depth" between the displays, the stereo-graphic effect of dual-eyeballs comes into play. Assuming the foreground image is mostly line-art or text and doesn't consist of large regions of solid color, then for every pixel in the background image, at least one of your eyeballs will have an unobstructed line of sight to it. You remain aware of the contents of both displays with no additional perceptual effort.
The device I tested had a touch screen attached in front, and the window-manager (well, Microsoft Windows(tm)) was configured so that a single-click on a titlebar would shift a window 1024 pixels left or right, effectively toggling it between the front and back displays.
To begin to recoup some of the enormous pricetag for ActualDepth hardware, though, you'd need to run software that's aware of the display's special characteristics. (The code doesn't need to link any special drivers or new APIs, but it does need to be aware that graphics drawn at (X-1024,Y) will appear floating over (X,Y)).
Essentially what the application should do is allocate one display for data, and one for meta-data. That is, if you're word-processing a document, the back display should always give a WYSIWYG preview of the output, and the front display should present all the filenames, font names, editing markup (including those automatically-generated spellchecker warning scribbles), section breaks, margin, column boundaries, etc.
I'd really like to see what user-interface innovations would pop out if the programming public got to play with these monitors for a while, but at the current price, that's just not going to happen. (ActualDepth should sponsor some free-software authors to modify their code to exploit their displays- until they get some sample applications out there, potential users won't understand the benefits).
Very Limited 3D (Score:1)
Now, I will say that the 'stacking' of related app data is kinda cool, but you really could get that from a single monitor. If you've seen WinXP in action, the mouse pointer creates a shadow over the desktop. Looks 3Dish. True it isn't in two planes, but who cares?
Sorry, but I'll keep my $6000 bux and buy a sweet rig and some glasses for true stereoscopic vision first. I wear glasses normally so wearing a different pair doesn't bother me at all.
Adding it all together (Score:2)
"Multidimensional"? (Score:2)
why buy the whole kit? (Score:1)
shrig.. i'd still like to see it in person
Hmm (Score:1)
Last time I looked "2" counted as multiple dimensions - a Uni-dimensional monitor wouldn't be much use now would it?
I'm far more interested (Score:2)
Can you immagine having a huge seemingly tranparent pane of glass with the ability to show any range of LCD images except white? It's like the ultimate HUD. I could install one in my car. The possibilities are endless.
CeBIT (Score:3, Informative)
Its called an overlay plane .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Kevin
multiple plane 3d viewers exist... (Score:3, Informative)
The idea is to send multiple beams into a glass cube. When beams interesct, they flouresce. By controling the way the beams enter the cube, one can create a volumetric display. There is an article here [laserfx.com] about some work done by some Stanford folks, and a somewhat related presentation here [berkeley.edu] from some Berkeley folks.
(also searching, I found the there was an article [slashdot.org] about Actual Depth here on
Saw one of these... (Score:1)
eh... this is a cheap trick (Score:2, Interesting)
you turned your head sideways
you moved your head to far to the right or left
you were to far or too near the display
Man, ergonomically nasty. But atleast these people are using the annoying tendency of LCD display to get real dim at a moderate to steep angle to their advantage. You know... Like those evil LCD movie screens on airplanes.
2.5D at best... (Score:2)
further, 2.5D usually allows for an unlimited number of parallel 2D planes, and this only has two.
Cool, I guess, but hardly a 3D monitor in any practical sense of the term...
Here's a real Stereoscopic LCD monitor (Score:1)
Saw one yesterday (Score:1)
The cheapest model was going for $8K.
FWIW, Dimensional Media had a true stereo-without-glasses monitor ( $95K ) that allowed 20 layers of depth and looked good, though the depth was not great ( looked good showing a Doom demo, tho ).
Max Fleischer Invented This (Score:1)
http://users.bestweb.net/~mentzerm/popeye.
Knew I shoulda. . . . (Score:2)
Not like it is all that ORIGINAL of an idea, the only main issue being the development of transparent LCD panels.
Still though, I wonder if my 16x+ LCD idea would count, or is it just a derivitive? Hmm.
Add more layers? (Score:2)
I could see this as something similar to the rapid-prototyping machines that compose an object out of tiny slices to turn 2D data into a 3D object.
One problem I would see is the visibility of the lower layers -- they would be obsecured by the top layers. This could be addressed by modulating the luminance value of the respective pixel in each layer, tuned to the depth of the layer (front layers would get less luminance while back would get more).
Would be cool, but expensive as single panels today are $$$.
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
i have yet to see a card with a better picture clarity and overall 2d computing... and i think thats what matters... how ofter do you use 3d... 10% 20% of the time...
maybe if we are lucky this new technology will help us use more 3d but untill then we use 2d for the majority for the time and i dont know about you but my eyes start to hurt when i have a fuzzy picture causing text to be a little bit less sharp...
so keep using your matrox cards... they are still VERY useful for day2day use...
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
Re:This is perfect... (Score:1, Funny)