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Displays

3D "Crystal Ball" Monitors 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sure-why-not dept.
glesga_kiss writes "Actuality Systems have issued a press release announcing sales of their 3D display technology, as reported by Yahoo Finance. The system works similar to an old spining disk optical illusion, except that the 21st century version produces an image that can change through the use of digital projection. In this case the screen is a rotating disk that is capable of producing light at any point that it passes through. The upshot is that you get a real 3D representation of your object, that can be viewed from 360 degrees around the display, without the need for any special goggles. Not quite ready for Hollywood, but the scientific and engineering communities have some obvious uses for it already..."
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3D "Crystal Ball" Monitors More

3D "Crystal Ball" Monitors

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  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) *
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Comment and mirror (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MbM ( 7065 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:26PM (#5849961) Homepage
      There's a reason why all the examples they show are wireframe.

      The device is just a spinning disc with lights, the disc is transparent so all you end up seeing are the lights apparently floating in a 3d plane. None of the points of light are going to be able to block eachother to display solid surfaces -- if you try to display a solid cube then each surface of the cube will be translucent and you'll end up seeing all sides of the cube atonce.

      Without being able to display solid surfaces you're pretty limited the applications for it.
      • Well, you could always do hidden surfaces removal .. err, wait

      • Re:Comment and mirror (Score:4, Informative)

        by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Thursday May 01, 2003 @07:12AM (#5851495) Journal
        Uh---did you look at the sugar molecule? Or any of the other pics? This thing runs on voxels...it does do solids.

        As for your explanation as to how this thing works...it's woefully lacking and even misleading. The thing displays a full slice every degree or so. It creates the illusion of solidness the exact same way moving pictures are faked: the slices change for every angle of rotation and with an rpm of 760, you get multiple slices per angle per minute.

        A quick view of the sugar molecule movie shows how this does work for solids.

        (btw, I saw the movies a couple of years back [2001 I beleive], so maybe they're not there anymore).

        • Re:Comment and mirror (Score:4, Informative)

          by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Thursday May 01, 2003 @07:48AM (#5851664) Homepage Journal
          Um, No. Actually, you missed the point.

          Whether the image is solid, wireframe or just points, you will be able to see through it. The way you solve this in 3D projection to 2D surface is to use hidden surface removel methods to not draw the obscured surfaces, Z-buffer being the most common for 3D accelerated cards on PCs.

          In true 3D like this, you do not necessarily know what direction the user is viewing from, so you do not know which surfaces should be obscured. When it draws the backside, you WILL be able to see it through the front side. There is nothing solid about the front side, it's just a light hanging in space.

          If the viewing direction IS known in advance (as in a prepared movie) then you could use hidden surface removel methods to alter the displayed image and remove the backside, but just from that one angle. But in general, the spherical nature of this display makes no rules about the viewing angle.

  • Ahh... I can finally gaze into my crystal ball... (Score:3, Funny)

    by macshune ( 628296 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:48PM (#5849007) Journal
    And check my e-mail!!! Woohoo!

  • Supported on Linux (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Surak ( 18578 ) * <.surak. .at. .mailblocks.com.> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:50PM (#5849024) Homepage Journal
    Supported under Linux according to this [actuality-systems.com]. I wonder if the drivers are open source (I doubt it.)

    I remember first seeing something like this on Star Wars when I was kid ... now it's really happening. Life imitates art. ;)
  • just imagine how cool this would be!! 3dWM [3dwm.org]

  • photos (Score:5, Informative)

    by sstory ( 538486 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:53PM (#5849046) Homepage
    Why no one linked to the photos is beyond me, but slashdot posts are well-known for poorly-placed/defined links. Anyway, here it is. [actuality-systems.com]
    • Am I the only one who noticed the eye of Sauron in the background of those pictures?

    • Re:photos (Score:4, Insightful)

      by deadsaijinx* ( 637410 ) <animemeken@hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:43PM (#5849393) Homepage
      It is this little thing called responsible linking. I have been admin of several websites, and I know first hand just how much bandwidth those images can take. If someone isn't interested enough to do a little ferreting, then they shouldn't be absorbing my bandwidth on something that really isn't of interest to them.
      Either way, you've pulled a successful karma-whoring, so congrads.

  • Not Ready for Hollywood (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andover Net ( 78484 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:53PM (#5849047) Homepage
    I dont think true 3d will ever be ready for Hollywood. Movies are made to tell a story. Thats why camera angles and such are important. The story is whats happening on the other side of the room.
  • but can I display a TTY one one of these things, and what's the resolution from any given viewpoint?
    • Someone once said that fridges full of rotting vegetables prove that 3D user interfaces won't work. Or at least that they won't work if we blindly apply metaphors to them without thinking too deeply.

      "Wow! I have mustard?"

      Xix.

      • As a system integrator/end user support person, I'll tell you exactly why 3D UIs are a bad idea:

        Because this is 2003, and I STILL hear, "You mean the other mouse button does something DIFFERENT?" far too frequently.

        If people can't handle a mouse with two buttons, trying to understand a 3D UI will make their brains liquefy and flow out of their ears.

        ~Philly
        • iirc, SGI's used to (still do?) have an optional file manager that was 3d based. looked kinda like that one in jurasic park (might have been that one for all i know). either way, your problem is that you talk to idiots, or mac users. what's the difference anyway? Answer: the average idiot isn't $3000 poorer. BURNING KARMA, BURNING IT ALL! and it feels SOOOOO good. CHACHACHA!
          • iirc, SGI's used to (still do?) have an optional file manager that was 3d based. looked kinda like that one in jurasic park (might have been that one for all i know).

            Yes, they made it just for the movie. For a long time they proudly distributed the entire thing for free (though only for IRIX) on their website. I don't think it exists there any more, but those of you lucky enough to own an SGI box can get it here [ftp.mayn.de].
        • Granted I have some rage issues, but doesn't it just piss you off when you middle click on winshit in M$IE only to get some damn scrolling icon instead of pasting text!!!!!!!

          • scripsit SHEENmaster:

            Granted I have some rage issues, but doesn't it just piss you off when you middle click on winshit in M$IE only to get some damn scrolling icon instead of pasting text!!!!!!!

            Or look like an idiot trying to paste something after just highlighting it. I'm waiting for some kid to helpfully explain ``^C to copy'' to me when I have to use the NT/MSIE terminals at the library...

  • Very exciting stuff, I'm blind in one eye so 3D "goggles" and their ilk have never worked for me! Thefore, I've been waiting for these technologies for a very long time.

    The possibilities are endless but I expect it'll be a while yet before this becomes popular. Maybe within 10 years.

    • "I'm blind in one eye "

      wouldn't that mean you have no depth perception?
      • Yes, it does, or at least poor depth perception compared to you two-eyed freaks. I am also blind in one eye. I have depth perception thanks to stuff like shadows, the size of objects, etc. but still run into trouble sometimes in dark settings (where I can't judge shadows), or sometimes trying to catch a high-flying ball where the only background is the sky.

        • Thanks for the reply, however:
          I have 3 eyes, you insensitive clod!

          joking aside, sometimes I hate to post a legitimate question on slashdot.

      • Re:Very exciting (Score:2, Informative)

        by Gidobola ( 661269 )
        wouldn't that mean you have no depth perception?

        Not really. There are a number of ways to interpret three dimensions. One is to use two devices slightly distant from each other on which a single three dimension image is projected from two different angles (i.e. two human eyes.) The other is to move a single two dimension device over time (time is a dimension after all) to make 3 dimensions. So, unless the original poster stands completely still all of his life, he can still sense depth and the device in

      • Re:Very exciting (Score:3, Funny)

        by Zerbey ( 15536 ) *
        I've no idea. I've been blind in one eye for my entire life so wouldn't really know how people with 2 working eyes "perceive" depth. I have no problems telling the differences between 2D (real world) and 3D (as seen on a TV screen/poster) objects, if that helps.

    • Depth Perception (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zerbey ( 15536 ) * on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:37PM (#5849358) Homepage Journal
      Stop flaming me about depth perception!

      I've no idea how someone with 2 eyes views the world since I've been blind in one eye since birth. What I think is 3D and you think is 3D is probably different. Anyway, I have no problems with depth perception I probably just view it a different way to what you do.

      Question: A TV screen is a "flat" 2D image, to me it's like looking through a window. Is it the same for people who have 2 working eyes?

      I'm intrigued!

      • Re:Depth Perception (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ocelotbob ( 173602 )
        Not really. I guess suspension of reality helps the enjoyment of television, but at the same time, looking out the window and watching TV are not analogous. There are differences, mostly dealing with clues provided by two slightly different images. Looking out a window, the second eye gives those clues, one can tell the window's there, but that there's depth beyond the window. A television doesn't provide those clues, it just looks different. The shading is there, sure, but at the same time, there's just so

      • Re:Depth Perception (Score:2, Insightful)

        by condour75 ( 452029 )
        motion parallax... while you would unfortunately see nothing different in a standard goggle-based 3d video or movie, a device like the crystal ball would appear 3d as soon as you moved your head. We 2 eye types see a television screen a little differently than through a window, and if you think about it, so do you. With a window, your viewing angle determines the area seen on the other side, and the apparent relationships of forms to one another. Not so in televisions, where the image instead just unifo
  • Surely you mean spinning disk? Somebody correct me if it's not just a typo...

  • The best 3d display I've seen was (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bolthole ( 122186 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:56PM (#5849078) Journal
    well, more of a movie projection,I guess. But Knotts Berry Farm (I think) in southern california, has (had?) a display with an alleged old indian shaman as narrator, that was effectively a 3d movie, without special glasses or anything. Quite solid-looking. It's really weird that the company hasnt been more prominent. I think the company was called "Virtual Light" or something like that.

    The whole thing was done up to look like a stage presentation, behind a glass box, elevated to the middle of a wall. Except if you looked at the depth of the wall from outside, there was no way the stage would fit in the wall ;-) It was that realistic, that you would really have no idea just by looking at it. They had fancy fake smoke effects, which were the obvious "illusion". but I think the shaman himself was also a recording. If so, that makes it a really really good holo-display.

  • The Specs.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by mikeclark ( 635807 )
    Image Size and Display Type - Approx. 10" diameter spherical image - Swept-screen multiplanar volumetric display - Autostereoscopic: no viewing goggles - Volume-filling imagery - Supports many simultaneous viewers - no head-tracking Resolution / Color / Performance / Memory - Volume comprised of 198 2-D slices (1.1 slices / degree) - Approximately 768 x 768 pixel slice resolution - 24 Hz volume refresh - Full color (21-bit hardware-based stippling) - 8 colors at highest resolution - Polygons / sec.: To b

  • Killer App? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kilbasar ( 617992 ) *
    Something like this needs a "Killer App" to really take off. There's lots of mention of uses in the fields of medicine, nuclear whatever, and other big important things, but I don't think that's what's going to push these things. So, what is? Simple. Porn. Come on, you KNOW you'd buy it if you could watch 3D porn on it!
  • Not quite ready for Hollywood, but the scientific and engineering communities have some obvious uses for it already...

    Which is to say, the people who designed it plan to make money off of it.

  • Deja vu (Score:4, Informative)

    by caouchouc ( 652238 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:08PM (#5849176)
    Hmm... This [slashdot.org] seems [slashdot.org] all too familiar [slashdot.org].
    • Yes, this was on Slashdot in 2002, 2001, and 2000.

      It goes in the dustbin of TV history, along with all the other ideas that involve scanning with moving parts. (There's a really good collection of these at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, incidentally.)

  • but the scientific and engineering communities have some obvious uses for it already...
    IE: Warcraft 3!

  • More Information and schematic (Score:5, Informative)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:15PM (#5849220) Homepage Journal
    here [zzz.com.ru] have fun...

  • In my day... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordByronStyrofoam ( 587954 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:17PM (#5849227)
    Interesting device. I developed the software used on the NOSC/SPAWAR laser-based volumetric display back in '96. It used a rotating two-bladed helix, in which each blade traveled from the top of the volume to the bottom of the volume as it rotated through 180 degrees. With two blades on a 600 RPM spindle, we got 20 frames/sec update - right on the cusp of image jitter. We used a Krypton/Argon laser and a prism to get RGB, and fed each primary color to a separate pair of acousto-optical devices steered by my program, which got an interrupt each time one of the blades crossed through zero degrees. The display space was 4096 by 4096 by 4096(polar coords), by using 12-bit D/A converters controlling X and Y, and 4096 slots in the display controller's memory, one for each of 4096 angles of rotation in 180 degrees.

    Our major limitation was the decay rate of the acousto-optical devices, which limited the speed at which we could randomly paint the voxels in our volume. We did, at most (if I remember correctly) about 40,000 voxels per 20th of a second. As a result, we were limited to wire frame images.

  • A Palantir is a dangerous tool (Score:3, Offtopic)

    by willpost ( 449227 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:19PM (#5849236)
    GANDALF: They are not all accounted for, the lost seeing stones. You do not know who else may be watching!
  • ...where they had a holographic-like display (although not a true holograph, but it was the early nineties, so who knew any better). the gameplay was pretty flaky since they used taped actors and if you didn't move your joystick the right way, you're screwed (a la Dragon's Lair).

    Here [yesterdayland.com] is a link to it.

  • Prior Art (Score:2, Funny)

    by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 )
    Don't know why you bothered posting, The Wicked Witch of the West had one of those things quite a while ago.

  • And it works with Windows? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @07:42PM (#5849385)
    I can't wait to see the Blue Sphere of Death. :)

    But seriously, what a cool gadget.

    Paul
  • I don't think that it will take market from "normal" monitors, at least where text is important. Also reflection would be a killer thing there. I see it more used as a secondary display, maybe this time 3D graphic card will have well put their name.
  • Not sure on the price -- something like tens of thousands. But that's not suprising, not outrageous for a new technology geared toward governments and research bodies, and not really a flaw.

    But the resolution is 768x768 per slice, and about 200 slices. The resolution varies with distance from the center, there is no such thing as occlusion, it has a very limited number of colors, and the flicker varies based on distance from the center.

    For some applications, these are not problems. However, the complet
  • ...quake quake quake quake!
  • It's just too squinchy. And there's the foggy spot where the axis of rotation is.

    Just for the coolness factor and large-scale effect, the pin display in X-Men wins for me.

    One of my friends tried to make one for their senior project. It was pretty slow...they had to use linear steppers and they were too bulky to put very close together. I told them they should have spent their time researching voice coils. But they did have a little 16 pin matrix, which read patterns off a CompactFlash card and cycled thro

  • Not in Holleywood (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ThomasFlip ( 669988 )
    Holleywood will never adopt this technology, maybe however the military would. To store a complete 3d movie with even semi-realistic images, it would require thousands of terabytes of storage. Movies would also never come out in theaters (Therefore eliminating that market potential) unless the public would be interested in walking around a dome room bumping into each other and scrambling to get a good view.

  • not new (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zejackal ( 186296 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:19PM (#5849601)
    This isn't really new stuff. Back in my freshman year of college I got interested in volumetric displays. I came up with some ideas and found out that someone had already done it. I forget his name, but he was a polish scientist working for the navy making volumentric displays for submarines. My first idea, and also this gentlemen's was to use a spining helical surface that rotated through 180 degrees and iluminate it with laser beams deflected from a spinning mirror. That was 10 years ago... and he had working models.

    Not wanting to work out another solution only to find someone had beaten me too it, I decided to do a little research and see what else was out there. I found a woman, I also forget her name but you'll have to excuse me because I haven't looked at this stuff in quite a while, who was using rare earth element doped fluoride glass to produce volumetric displays. Her work involved utilizing IR lasers. When the two beams intersected in the glass they caused a point to illuminate. A raster or vector scan of the volume could produce three dimensional images. This work was paralleled by a man in Japan, again... can't remember his name.

    After finding out about the rare earth doped fluoride glass processes I had to figure out another one. I did, it's really cool, and so far no-one else has put forth a similar design. However, I could never fund the work myself (I was a starving student), and then I began working for a big company with whom I have one of those "anything you think of is ours" clauses in my contract, so I can't work on it now either.

    However, I may get a chance to pursue it in the not so distant future, and man will it be cool to see it operating. Of course if I ever do get it working I will make sure that my web site has the capacity to handle the slashdot effect.

  • Scsi connectors? 'Scuse me? Wouldn't something like USB 2.0 or Firewire be a more logical choice, because it doesn't require a special card and it's far more common? Also, when will we have truly 3D RTS games? Maybe something for use with Homeworld 2?

  • Lets see here... obvious uses, obvious uses... Hrrrm... Number 1: Porn. Number 2: ...Fuck. Hold on, I'll think of something.
  • Sheeesh. More than 20 years ago, Steve Ciarcia in his Byte Magazine "Circuit Cellar" column described how to make such a system with an oscilloscope, three DACs and a photodiode on the spinning mirror.

  • The *real* problem with 3D displays (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stephentyrone ( 664894 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:46PM (#5849728)
    or, rather, all the 3D display technologies I've seen so far, is that there's no "hidden line removal", so to speak. Every technology i've seen is inherently transparent, and uses some means to generate perceived light sources within a volume.

    Unfortunately, the human optical system isn't really built to deal with this on a regular basis; we expect *most* things to be at least somewhat opaque, and have a considerably easier time processing visual information that adheres to those expectations. So what's really needed is a way to not only change the color of a voxel, but also it's opacity; basically an "alpha channel". (You can't just do old school hidden line (surface) removal because you don't know where the observer is).

    Clearly, this is impossible with any of the spinning disc/helicoid techniques; with some of the other ideas (like crystal activated by non-visible-wavelength, etc) it seems like it should be possible; use one wavelength to produce light, another to turn pixels opaque. Make the interior of an "object" opaque, illuminate the boundary, and you've got a display that's much easier for the human visual system to process.

    Prediction: until this happens, no real 3-D displays except for highly specific industry applications.

    • I disagree; occlusion is possible (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, spinning-screen displays are capable of viewer position-dependent effects, such as occlusion. The spinning screen isn't the point - it's the screen. In order to make an arbitrary light field (through piecewise approximation), you need to be able to control both the amplitude AND the trajectory of each "ray bundle." If you use a screen that is not a diffuser, but something with beam-steering capabilities, you can do occlusion. For instance, see US Pat. 6,487,020.

      patent link [uspto.gov]

      -gregg
  • Not quite ready for Hollywood, but the scientific and engineering communities have some obvious uses for it already...


    By that of course they mean viewing a pic of Pam Anderson from all sides...
  • "Not quite ready for Hollywood, but the scientific and engineering communities have some obvious uses for it already..."

    Porn?
  • well its about damn time. How do you think i am supposed to shoot a torpedo down that 1 meter square hole without an acurate 3d model of the Deathstar's ventillation systems!!?

  • Old Video Game (Score:2, Interesting)

    by OH-58aKiowa ( 631619 )
    Wasn't there a 3d video game in the mid 80s that used a crystal ball for the monitor? It featured (I'm sure I'm not making this up) a cowboy who travels through time shooting things. It didn't require any skill, you just had to know when to jump, duck or shoot. The arcade I saw this in had it against a wall so you couldn't really appreciate the 3d quality. In the same vein as the 'naked Princess' it had a miniskirked girl who travelled boy orb and told you why the cowboy was travelling through time.
  • Stargate: SG-1 has had these since the end of the first season!
  • here [slashdot.org] almost a year ago Friday May 24, @02:44PM 2002
  • I'm going to get one so I can display /var/log/messages on it.

    Then when they ask me "hey Martin is the mail server back up?" I can reply with "I dunno, let me look into my crystal ball....."

    It's not that different from what I do now...

  • I think mine's broke... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bluethundr ( 562578 ) * on Thursday May 01, 2003 @09:43AM (#5852405) Homepage Journal


    ...because I can't see what the heck's going on in in Minas Morgul these days. My connection to Orthanc seems to be down too...

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