i recently read something at http://www.macrumors.com about Apple making stereoscopic displays-apparently simulating a 3D enviroment. Does anyone know what exactly stereoscopic displays do, how they work, or whether this rumor has any validity?
Apple's Stereoscopic Displays
- Thread starter Brewster
- Start date
symphonix
Scratch & Sniff Committee
I have encountered several methods of creating 3D displays over the past ten years or so. One of the more interesting was made up of twenty or so LCDs layered about a centimetre apart ... if it were ever manufactured it would cost a small fortune!
A popular method at the moment is to use shutter-glasses. Basically, they're glasses with a single liquid-crystal element across the surface of each lens. When a current is applied to this, the glass goes completely black in a few milliseconds.
The idea is, the 3D image on the screen will alternate at least fifty times a second between what the left eye should see and what the right eye should see, and the glasses would in some way be synchronised with this so that your left eye only gets to see one image and your right eye the other. I have a pair of these glasses at home, and they are very impressive, but they have drawbacks.
Firstly, they require very fast refresh rates, which means they'll only run on high-end CRT monitors ... not on flat panels. The quality of the image is great, but the setup and adjustment is still too technical for the consumer.
Another good system involving glasses used polarised lenses. The left lens was polarised vertically and the right lens horizontally. The image is then projected onto a screen by two separate projectors: the left projector has a vertically polarised lens, the right projector horizontal.
To be honest, I think it unlikely that Apple would NOT be spending some time and effort experimenting with 3D imaging and virtual reality technologies. They already have enough of the groundwork laid with QTVR to be able, sometime in the future, to release some sort of VR device: the technology exists, but is very expensive, and Apple has enough of the software to be considered a player.
However, I seriously doubt we'll be seeing any such device in the next few years. The cost of producing any of these devices for the market, and of supporting these products, is still a little beyond reasonable limits.
A popular method at the moment is to use shutter-glasses. Basically, they're glasses with a single liquid-crystal element across the surface of each lens. When a current is applied to this, the glass goes completely black in a few milliseconds.
The idea is, the 3D image on the screen will alternate at least fifty times a second between what the left eye should see and what the right eye should see, and the glasses would in some way be synchronised with this so that your left eye only gets to see one image and your right eye the other. I have a pair of these glasses at home, and they are very impressive, but they have drawbacks.
Firstly, they require very fast refresh rates, which means they'll only run on high-end CRT monitors ... not on flat panels. The quality of the image is great, but the setup and adjustment is still too technical for the consumer.
Another good system involving glasses used polarised lenses. The left lens was polarised vertically and the right lens horizontally. The image is then projected onto a screen by two separate projectors: the left projector has a vertically polarised lens, the right projector horizontal.
To be honest, I think it unlikely that Apple would NOT be spending some time and effort experimenting with 3D imaging and virtual reality technologies. They already have enough of the groundwork laid with QTVR to be able, sometime in the future, to release some sort of VR device: the technology exists, but is very expensive, and Apple has enough of the software to be considered a player.
However, I seriously doubt we'll be seeing any such device in the next few years. The cost of producing any of these devices for the market, and of supporting these products, is still a little beyond reasonable limits.
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
How exactly would that work? The images that the monitor "shoots" at this point in time is picked up by both eyes. It's near impossible to "shoot" a beam of light at one eye and not have it picked up by the other eye in the process. Too much "ambient" light is created in the process... what would be more effective is the "shutter glasses" solution -- I remember a pair of these for the old Sega Master System, and they produced some REALLY impressive results. The only problem back then was the glasses were REALLY heavy and started to hurt the bridge of your nose after a while... I'm sure now, 10 years later, the technology could be incorporated into something MUCH smaller.
symphonix
Scratch & Sniff Committee
My ones cost $200 AU (about $100 US) and look like a slightly ugly pair of sunglasses. They only support a handful of PC video cards and an even smaller number of monitors, and worse yet, they only support DirectX. But I did have them going for a while there, and yes, the shutter glasses are really impressive. Tomb Raider in 3D is awesome.
