Three dimensional imaging has generally been regarded as something of a novelty rather than a serious set of applications. However, work across different technologies has finally led to the prospect that 3D displays could soon be coming to the workplace and into our homes.

The reality of the 3D experience has come a long way from the red/green glasses worn by cinema audiences back in the 1950s and is now far closer to the vision of three dimensional imaging typically associated with the worlds of science fiction. Companies such as Philips and SeeReal Technologies are creating viable applications for TVs, PC monitors and even projectors. Science fiction is becoming science fact.

Believe it or not, many areas of the media look upon 3D as the next technological leap post-High Definition (HD), and many Hollywood studios are already shooting some of their bigger productions in 3D.

“Offering the consumer a compelling 3D experience is a strategic target for nearly all major participants in the imaging industry,” says Jörg Röder, head of administration at SeeReal. “Ranging from content providers such as DreamWorks and Pixar, games and applications providers including Microsoft and Nintendo, to almost the entire flat display industry, 3D is generally recognised as the ‘next big thing’.

“Japan, Korea and Taiwan have each declared 3D of national strategic importance and formed national and international consortia to realise the potential of delivering an altogether new – and strongly differentiating - experience to the consumer, be it on the Web, on TV or smaller displays including mobile phones. The European Union also sponsors large programs and consortia in both stereography and holography (the MUTED and ATTEST programmes),” he continues.

“The transition from 2D to 3D will encompass the entire market just like the migration from black and white to colour, but will due to the shortening of product cycles happen much faster. According to companies such as Microsoft, it will be virtually complete within 10 years.”

Different companies have taken different approaches to creating viable 3D solutions, using routes encompassing lenticular (Philips), holography (SeeReal) and/or stereography (SeeReal and Autodesk) technologies.

These technologies aren’t inherently ‘new’, however innovations in areas such as digital signal processes, powerful video processes and the availability of HD LCD and plasma flat panels makes it now possible to introduce glasses-free 3D displays into the business and consumer market.

“Moreover the complete TV creation-distribution-visualisation chain was taken into account in the design of a new 3D standard,” remarks Hans Driessen, senior communications manager, Philips. “This means that the new 3D format should be able to be distributed over existing infrastructures and that the creation of 3D content could be easily re-created for our legacy of 2D video, animations and games.”

In daily life we see in 3D since our left eye sees a slightly different image than our right eye, and the brain uses these two images to create the 3D (depth) experience. With 3D glasses the images are filtered for the left and right eye. Philips’ technology, entitled WOWvx, uses an array of micolenses (lenticulars) on the LCD panel to send different images to your left and right eye. It actually sends out nine different images so that multiple people are able to comfortably move their head while maintaining the 3D experience.

Moving on to holography, the technology was invented 60 years ago, but two inherent historical challenges have prevented it from becoming a mainstream technology in consumer displays. The first issue was insufficient display resolution. In order to achieve a viewing angle of 60° in holographic displays, a pixel pitch of about one wavelength is required. For a 47” display, that typically corresponds to approximately 250,000 times HDTV resolution.

The second problem was inadequate data volume and processing requirements. Computation of each pixel’s value requires significantly more steps than for a regular 2D display. Multiplied with the greatly increased pixel quantity required, enormous computational power is needed. Real time video quality holograms thus typically require up to several hundred Peta-FLOPS. 

However as time moved on so did technology, and SeeReal worked on overcoming these two challenges through tracked Viewing Window technology and real-time encoding of sub-holograms.

“Based on extensive experience and know-how in development of 3D display technologies, SeeReal has created a concept; the Viewing Window technology, limiting pixel size to levels already known for HDTV applications. This, in combination with a real-time tracking system, eliminates superfluous elements and at the same time significantly reduces the requirements for real-time computing solutions. This new concept of limiting holographic imaging to the Viewing Windows is applicable to direct view (desktop or TV) as well as to projection imaging,” explains Röder.

Then there is the content itself. Without content uptake of 3D displays would be miniscule, however companies are working on creation solutions. For example, Autodesk is currently concentrating on developing products that allow for the creation of stereoscopic content.

“Our tools provide solutions across the line for digital content creation (DCC), and are in many cases at the core of the production of stereo content,” highlights Sebastian Sylwan, senior film and television industry manager, Autodesk. “Anyone making stereo content faces many issues as they get deeper into the details. We believe there are some processes in the traditional content creation pipeline that are deeply changed in stereo production, from the mere technical ones (synchronising the two images, correcting lens distortion coherently for both cameras, etc), to the purely creative ones (editing the depth script, adjusting hyper or ipo-stereoscopy on different planes of the image, compositing, grading, etc). Stereo production blurs the lines separating traditional DCC processes, changes the way some creative decisions are made and adds new ones to the mix.

“We need to create a new grammar for stereo content and help the creative deliver their message without being bogged by technical issues. This is what we are currently concentrating on.”

So, technologies are now available – SeeReal cites 2009-2010 as the date the first products using their solution will be on the retail market - and content creation tools are in development to make 3D imagery much more common. But the big question here is what kinds of applications will best suit 3D and do consumers really want it?

Considering applications first, manufacturers like Philips have already found a business interest for 3D displays in regards to advertising in stores and shopping malls to attract shoppers’ attention, using the displays to catch eyes in casinos, amusement parks and big event shows etc, and also for use in more serious applications where 3D data visualisation could really bring things to life; such as geographic or medical imaging.

Consumer applications can also be foreseen within a few years, and research has shown that there already is a consumer interest in 3D and what it can offer home entertainment.

”Consumer testing showed that viewers considered the video and games more immersive and entertaining,” notes Driessen. “When consumers see a clear benefit they can embrace a new technology rapidly (For example the change from CRT to flat panel LCD went much faster than the industry anticipated). This could well be the case (with 3D displays). If you have seen a demonstration of Philips 3D WOW displays you can see the great potential. With quad HD LCD panels on the way, these extra pixels can be used for higher resolution 3D images and more (>9) views for a comfortable 3D experience.

“Moreover I think that huge innovation will come from the content industry creating specific 3D content. I am personally amazed about the continuous progress in this area; specific 3D animations or 3D video shot with stereo camera set-ups. Creative directors and producers have now a complete new dimension to explore,” he concludes.

The future is now

Believe it or not, there are already TV sets in stores that have 3D capabilities. Texas Instruments DLP has been working with Samsung and Mitsubishi in the US, to include 3D ready functionality in their 2007 DLP HDTV product line-up. However, these sets do require users to wear 3D glasses.

“Consumers may be familiar with what we have been doing in 3D,” says John Reder, UK and EMEA spokesperson. ““DLP has now been able to adapt its 3D cinema technology into a television product which is currently shipping in the US by Samsung and Mitsubishi. It does require that you wear glasses but we have restyled them to make them much more acceptable for wearing.

“These 3D-Ready HDTV are shipping in the US, and Samsung actually converted the entire line to 3D, and now it is number one DLP TV in terms of sales in the US. Mitsubishi have their higher end product line that is now all 3D as well.”

He continues; “DLP 3D technology solves several issues with past and present 3D systems.  First, DLP systems are very fast, presenting a full 50-60Hz image to each eye, requiring a 100-120Hz total system rate. Many systems in the past could operate at only 50-60Hz, presenting only a 25-30Hz image to each eye, which caused flicker and motion blur. Second, the contrast ratio, termed 'extinction ratio' in the 3D industry, between the left and right image is extraordinarily high because the DLP imager can switch completely between the two images in a matter of microseconds (millionths of a second). This prevents any 'bleeding,' or crosstalk, between the two images which would destroy the 3D effect. While some display systems are presently discussing 100-120Hz operation, they do not typically switch completely between two images, but rather, switch gradually to minimize their motion lag issues. Other systems are promoting 'autostereoscopic,' which do not require glasses, but their extinction ratios are typically quite low due to the imprecision of directly one light ray exclusively to the right eye and another exclusively to the left eye. In summary, DLP 3D technology operates very fast, allowing a true 50-60Hz image to each eye, with minimal crosstalk.”