This episode of DNews is brought to you by the all-new G Flex 2, from LG.
Life’s Good
Get ready for the future!
Where you could see in 3D without those glasses.
Hi guys, Julia here for DNews.
What’s called, autostereoscopy, or a method of displaying a 3D image without the use of
awkward headgear is sort of old technology.
If you call 30 years ago old.
It was first developed by Reinhard Boerner (RINEHARD BUR-NER) at the Heinrich Hertz Institute
(HHI) in Berlin in the mid 80s.
Since then it’s gone through a few iterations, but this latest one is a huge step up in terms
of awesomeness.
A new prototype, from a partnership between a small tech start up, TriLite and the Vienna
University of Technology, has the potential to create huge outdoor 3D displays by beaming
lasers directly into your eyes!
With current technology, glassless 3D images are limited.
They’re single view displays with just two images projected and they need a “sweet
spot” to be viewed currently.
Sitting outside of this zone leads to a blurred image.
You also never get the sense of moving around an object.
When it is possible, it’s only through eye-tracking devices which really only work for one person
at a time.
This new technology is still a small prototype of only 3x5 pixels, or as they call them “trixels,”
but it’s promising.
Each tiny part is made of up three laser diodes, a cylindrical microlens, as well as a moveable
mirror.
The mirrors move the laser in different directions.
The 3D effect comes from the lasers sending a different picture to each of your eyes.
What’s really novel about this new technology besides the lasers, is the ability to see
the image from different angles.
Its creators say this new system could project hundreds of different images and could create
potentially thousands of different "viewing zones" and the image would change as you walked
past it.
This technology still has a “sweet spot” though, a pretty large one at that.
To view a 3D image you would have to be within about 76 yards of the screen! and if you’re
too far away, you’d just see a 2D image, not blurred or distorted one.
The only catch is that capturing an image in that kind of 3D would be difficult.
You’d either have to use a bunch of cameras or a new camera would have to be invented.
So while the technology still has to be scaled up and tweaked, I’m excited.
Obviously 3D technology is not just a thing of the future.
Some of you might already have 3D televisions at home.
At CES this year, LG unveiled their latest line of Smart 3D 4K OLED TVs.
But even though 3D is one of the coolest parlour tricks, it’s also a pretty old one.
In order to trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing depth, each eye needs to see
a slightly different image.
Photographers first figured this out in the mid-1800s.
Back in the day, two images taken from slightly different angles, would be seen through the
most popular device, a Holmes stereoscope.
In the mid 1900s, a more modern version arose, the View-Master.
One of these guys.
The cheesy colored glasses type of 3D was also figured out in the 1800s.
It’s called Anaglyph 3D.
With this type, images are coded with colors, usually chromatical opposite like red and
blue.
If the left eye has a red lens, it reads the blue part of the image as black and the opposite
is true for the other eye.
More modern ways to trick the brain into see 3D use passive polarization glasses which
filters lines of pixels for each eye or active flicker glasses.
As the name suggests theses flicker in time with the tv, so your right eye only gets the
images for that eye and the left eye only gets images meant for it.
It’s cool to see how far the technology has come, and where it’s going.
Are you a fan of 3D?
Did you go see Jaws 3D in theaters?
Is Avatar your FAVORITE MOVIE?
Or are you literally sick of the whole gimmick?
(there’s a video here on why you might get sick from 3D movies)
Let us know in the comments below.
don’t forget to subscribe and keeping back from more DNews everyday