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http://www.uemedia.net/CPC/digitalcinemamag/articles/article_17357.shtml
By matt buchanan, 2:00 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008, 27,287 views
Last week, CNN's attempt to display the future of TV news ended up making 3D look like the gimmick that it is. Yep, 3D is a gimmick, most associated (outside of CNN) with those stupid glasses designed to fit Blockheads from Venus. But as you know, there are many different scientific approaches dedicated to tricking you into thinking bullets—or other deadly projectiles such as children—are popping out of the screen and coming right at you. Here's a quick and dirty guide to 3D magic.
Most 3D operates on a single basic principle—tricking our dumb, binocular brain into interpreting a 2D image into one with depth. The most basic way to do this is stereoscopy, which is essentially showing a slightly different image to each eye which the brain mashes together into a 3D image. We've broken up the million different ways to do 3D in a few broad categories.
Stupid Glasses
It's easiest to do stereoscopic images with glasses or other nerdtastic eyewear to change how you see stuff—hence there are a lot of variations in 3D glasses tech.
• An anaglyph image is the old school 3D we all know and got headaches from: An image has two different color layers, one for each eye, with slightly different perspectives and when we look at them through those awesome plastic glasses (usually with red and blue lenses) that block one layer in each eye, our dumb brain takes the resulting separate image from each eye and mashes them together to make a 3D scene in our head.
• Polarized 3D glasses are the more modern choice for cheap 3D for the masses—you've worn them at IMAX if you've caught a 3D movie there, or at Disney World, since the big thing they allow over an anaglyph is full color. They work kind of the same way as the red/blue glasses though—two synced projectors throw images with slightly different perspectives up simultaneously, but at different polarizations. The polarized glasses only allow a single corresponding polarized image into each eye, and the brain does the hard work again, combining two separate images into a single 3D one.
•The Pulfrich effect is a brain bug where side-to-side motion is interpreted to have some depth when there's a slight sync lag between your eyes. A set of glasses with a dark lens over one eye will make this happen, so when something moves from left to right, it'll look like it's moving back or forward—you know, in 3D. It's been used for the Super Bowl and Married with Children, since the glasses are so cheap. [Thanks David!]
•ChromaDepth is perhaps the fanciest glasses tech using micro-prisms and whatnot (hello red and blue again), but all it essentially does is slightly shift the way colors are perceived in each eye, so they see different things and boom, 3D. The major limitation of the tech is that if you change the color of an object, you also change how its depth is perceived, since it's all based on color. (Check out the video above, done in ChromaDepth, to see what I mean.) [Thanks David!]
• LCD shutter glasses are excellent because they're so ridiculous. They actually block vision alternately in each eye in time with the refresh rate on the display by rapidly darkening each lens, while the display alternately shows images with a slightly different perspective (this is called alternate frame sequencing). It's essentially the "show different stuff to each eye" principle taken to its logically absurd conclusion—literally blocking the sight of the unwanted eye. Yes, these complicated puppies usually run over $100 (or way more, even), and can give you a headache on a monitor without a high enough refresh rate.
No Glasses Required
Okay, so you don't wanna wear glasses. No problem—you just move the one-image-per-eye dance to the display itself.
• A parallax barrier is one of the more popular ways for swinging 3D without glasses—you see it in Sharp TVs for instance. It actually works a lot like polarized glasses, it just moves where the obstruction magic happens to the front of the TV. Instead of having glasses filter the image for each eye, the screen's parallax barrier—think of it is a very finely grated fence with precisely angled holes—directs different light into each eye, and your brain turns the mixed signals into a 3D image. The bad part? With a normal parallax barrier, the screen is permanently in 3D mode and you don't have exactly have a wide viewing angle. Sharp's trick for 3D in LCD displays is fancier—there's a second LCD that creates the parallax barrier with a polarized grid of lines, which is nice because you can turn it off and go back to regular 3D viewing.
• Integral Imaging is a form of parallax actually. You've got a bunch of supertiny micro-images that you actually peep through an array of spherical convex lenses, one per micro-image. All these micro-images come together when you look at them to form a 3D image.
• Another form of parallax is continuous-motion parallax. Here, HoloVizio's system dumps pixels in favor of voxels, which can project multiple light beams in multiple directions simultaneously.
3D in 3D
So far, we've just talked about 2D images on a flat screen, which your brain is fooled into thinking are three-dimensional. The other side is creating images in real 3D— you know, meatspace. Still, most of them make use of lighting and projection tricks too.
• The Graphics Lab at the University of Southern California has come up with a cheap way to create images in 3D space (as opposed to planar space) by using a spinning mirror called a light-field display. Basically high speed video is projected onto a quickly spinning mirror, which then "reflects a different and accurate image to each potential viewer." The system uses an algorithm to figure out the correct shading and occlusion for the image.
• Japanese researchers' new plasma-laser hologrammy device takes advantage of the "plasma emission phenomenon near the focal point of focused laser light." By manipulating the laser's focal point, along the x, y and z axes, they can display real 3D images in mid-air.
• Heliodisplay actually creates a surface in mid-air to project an image onto, which allows you to do the "Help me Obi-wan Kenobi" type of floating holograms that look 3Dish, though they're actually planar (2D) images. Yep, it's expensive.
FAKE FAKE FAKE
There are lots of suggested 3D images out there that aren't any kind of real 3D—videogames are of course the most obvious. But why pick on them when you can pick on CNN?
• Sorry Wolf, but we gotta hit people with the truth: CNN's "holograms" are totally fake. We already explained this before, but no one was projected in front of Wolf Blitzer. He was looking at a wall. What we saw at home as computer-generated: A bunch of HD cameras filmed the hologramee from all sides, computers crunched that data and delivered whatever angle the studio camera needed at the time. As long as the source angle was synced to the studio angle, it looked, to viewers at least, like a 3D "hologram." Nice try, Wolfie. Call us when you score an R2 unit. –With Reporting by Seung Lee. Post updated with two additional 3D technologies.
Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about 3D, double Ds or croissan'wiches to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.
Read More: 3d, home entertainment, 3-d, imax, 3d glasses, 3-D glasses, how 3d works, cnn, wolf blitzer, hologram, top, feature, stereoscopy, stereoscope, imax 3d, parallax barrier, integral image, lcd shutter glasses, anaglyph, anaglyph image, light-field display, plasma laser, heliodisplay
waveman216
2:05 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
I was working as an intern at an optics company back in the late '90s. They were developing some sort of 3d television unit for the Navy using hologram filters or somethin like that. To this day it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
waveman216 I was working as an intern at an optics company back in...
2:10 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
3 replies
Fluxcap
2:10 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
Side not, anyone watch the new Polar Express Blu-ray 3D at home? I want a PS3 for Xmas just for my daughter if it looks/works well.
Fluxcap Side not, anyone watch the new Polar Express Blu-ray 3D...
2:12 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
4 replies
Lite
2:12 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
All this talk of 3D and Holograms, but no mention of Gem? This is outrageous!
Lite All this talk of 3D and Holograms, but no mention of...
2:12 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
5 replies
rayman19082
2:19 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
I don't know if anyone here listens to X-Japan or not. But they used this hologram technology to bring back their deceased guitars Hide, in their ridiculously virtuosic performance of Art of life earlier this year. If you haven't hear of the song go check it out. It's 25 minutes long and it's 1 hell of a song!!!!
rayman19082 I don't know if anyone here listens to X-Japan or not....
2:22 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
1 reply
Ibelieveinsandwitches
2:22 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
My brother is blind in one eye and can't see traditional 3-D in movies. to make a long story short, he gets made fun of a lot for it, and smacked in the head on his blindside.
Ibelieveinsandwitches My brother is blind in one eye and can't see traditional...
2:30 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
5 replies
Gann
2:30 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
Off topic: what happened to the post about the military's youtube censorship?
Gann Off topic: what happened to the post about the...
2:33 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
2 replies
badle
2:33 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
I hate all the 3D glasses things because I'm blind in one eye and feel totally left out... you all think you're better than me with your depth perception...
badle I hate all the 3D glasses things because I'm blind in...
Con Seannery
2:39 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
I was at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and they had a hologram in there of the ring you get when you're inducted, it looked very, very real, and it was so freakin' awesome.
Con Seannery I was at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and they had a...
theoldwolf
2:49 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
Wait a second... CNN lied about something? To enhance ratings?! My world just doesn't make sense any more.
theoldwolf Wait a second... CNN lied about something? To enhance...
alter
2:57 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
3D TV is cool! I saw one for the first time this week and it works fine!
alter 3D TV is cool! I saw one for the first time this week...
citizen024
3:02 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
when will we get holodecks?
citizen024 when will we get holodecks?
3:14 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
1 reply
fastm3driver
3:14 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
It is funny that the video or the 3D image, looks 3D. Why not make 1 3D machine, then record the video of that and put it on a disc. Genius, I know.
fastm3driver It is funny that the video or the 3D image, looks 3D....
UnitySimon
3:16 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
Cool story. I came across some further info on the new 3D technologies at giz3d.com - def worth a look!
UnitySimon Cool story. I came across some further info on the new...
RosaNeoptolemus
3:19 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
You should also mention other forms of "fake" holograms that became famous, like the "diesel liwuid display" and the infamous "kate moss" hologram. I figure it's obvisouly not a real hologram, since they don't show any paralax or any other indication, but couldn't say what it was. Projection on a transparent screen? On smoke? Or something more mundane like a false mirror?
RosaNeoptolemus You should also mention other forms of "fake" holograms...
3:20 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
1 reply
Jrsy is back to being the dude, playing the dude disguised as another dude
3:20 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
"with those stupid glasses designed to fit Blockheads from Venus"
I don't think the women around here are going to take too kindly at being called blockheads...
Jrsy is back to being... "with those stupid glasses designed to fit Blockheads...
DeadlineX
3:25 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
You guys forgot HMDs.
[www.vrealities.com]
DeadlineX You guys forgot HMDs. [www.vrealities.com]
icelight
3:38 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
There are a few other systems that have rather more practical purpose. One of the MIT labs put together a system using acoustic waves in a thin film to distort projected laser light with enough resolution to actually form a traditional interference hologram, but one that could be updated live. They were using it to create images of hearts from CT data for cardiac surgeons.
icelight There are a few other systems that have rather more...
Chiper
3:52 PM on Wed Nov 12 2008
The polarized glasses method isn't exclusive to theme parks any more, and also doesn't require two projectors. This can also be achieved by interleaving the different frames on a normal film and running it faster. You then have a polarized shutter in front of the projector that switches the polarity after every frame. Run the projector at 48 frames per second (instead of the usual 24) and the audience is none the wiser.
This method is used in a lot of theaters now for doing 3D performances.
The other, much more costly method (and I don't know if this is even being used) is to polarize the individual frames of the film, thus eliminating the need for the shutter. You still have to run the projector at double speed tho.
Chiper The polarized glasses method isn't exclusive to theme...
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