WATTech – 3D Flat Panel Displays
The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley — Robert Burns.
The idea of WATTech was conceived a long time ago. However, despite my best intentions and forewarnings by a lot of people, the momentum did not pick up. Hence, a renewed effort. As I mentioned in my introductory article, and the analysis on the Gartner Cycle, I will be following the Gartner Hype Cycle.
Now, the first technology at the “Technology Trigger” is Human Augmentation. Since that focuses more on biology, I skipped that one. There’s a funny comic on xkcd though.
Now, 3D television and 3D movies have been around for a long time. A lot of films including recent ones like Ice Age 3D allow 3D representation of images which gives a more realistic feel to the entire film.
Concept: The concept behind 3D TV or 3D Display is simple. It gives a more realistic feel to the entire experience
The How: 3D films have been around since 1952. Even though the technology display was only 2-dimensional (CRO), they managed to produce some semblance of depth. There are various tricks how the eye can be made to believe of the existence of depth. Depth is perceived due to the fact that we have two eyes, both of which process information differently. The image is then processed in the brain. 3D display, however hopes to achieve actual depth. This concept is called stereoscopy. With a slight change in phase of image, a 2D image can be made to appear a sif with depth. There’s a lot of methods to achieve the same. Here’s the Wikipedia article for those interested.
There’s also headgear for most of these. Remember those old 3D films where people would be given glasses (with red for one eye and blue for the other)? However, wearing the glasses is irksome, and more importantly, it’s known to cause side-effects over time.
Autostereoscopy hopes to eliminate the headgear and try and present depth as is. This is the primary principle behind most 3D Television/Display Devices. Other technologies like Volumetric Display and Holograms are being developed and experimented with.
History and Market:
Autosteroscopic display is a technology still in incubation. Though there are several companies that are innovating on it, and the technology is out there, it is yet to gain widespread acceptane. The first case of this was out as early as 2004. An example is Sharp’s 3D Flat Panel.
In 2008, Hollywood started renewing it’s interest in 3D. And not the amateurish glasses concept. It was 3D Hardware + 3D Software processing. Which gave images proper depth.
The current market does not want bulky technology. By the ads that are on screen, slim is in. As LCD and Plasma screens get thinner and thinner, the 3D Flat Screen needs to match up with it.
Which is the reason, mainstream adoption will take years (5-10 according to Gartner). The cost is at least 5-10 times the cost of conventional screens, a major downer for entry.
The multiview also takes a heavy toll on pixels and hence our eyes are not yet accustomed to move from the close to 1080+ pixels we get from a commercial flat screen.
In late February Philips 3D Solutions, by far the largest holder of autostereoscopic patents decided to completely shut down shelving their IP, proprietary format and algorithms. The economic recession had hit them hard, and competing in an uninspired economy was difficult.
A video about Philips and it’s technology.
Scope for Application
The technology is just emerging. Gartner has placed it at “Technology Trigger”.
We are not yet familiar with holograms, but science fiction pays a lot of attention to them. Checkout any star Trek film, or any cartoon or comic, if there’s new age science, holograms are commonplace. However, holograms or actual 3D images are harder to create. Actual 3D images come under the banner of volumetric displays. For that, you need a large number of image producers positioned correctly. Then using, scattering, delayed illumination and other varied effects, a proper 3D image can be formed. How much time will that take to reach the consumer?
This year, Microsoft introduced Natal — a major improvement in gaming technology. Sony andNintendo followed. It won’t be long before mainstream adoption, especially for hardcore gaming fans.
The scope for this technology extends beyond entertainment. It would also enable progress in design work, facial recognition, architecture. What people design now using software like Maya and 3DS Max, will now be easily accessible visually.
Shortcomings:
Though developments have been positive, like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dreamworks chief executive, promising at a recent industry conference that the next generation of 3D movies would jump out of the cinema and into our lounge rooms once TV makers put the finishing touches on 3D-ready displays destined for the mass markets. In August British subscription TV operator BSkyBannounced plans to roll out Britain’s first 3D channel to its HD Sky subscribers next year. The company cited recent breakthroughs in camera, pre-production, set-top box and TV technologies as key to broadcasting an image that displays in a similar way to the human eye when it perceives the environment.
The drawbacks :
- 3D Technology is still very expensive, and definitely not viable to the average customer
- Due to lack of technology, Lack of 3D-supporting content also exists
- None of the display makers has managed to overcome the need for special glasses. These glasses are known to induce side-effects like nausea and head-aches.
It is primarily because of these shortcomings that Gartner predicts that this technology will reach its potential only in the next 5-10 years. The research firm has been quoted as saying that it does not anticipate “any significant improvement in 3D TV technologies for the home before 2015”.
“For the consumer home market, the 3D TV is likely to remain a niche product, not only because of the global recession, but also mainly because the technologies available are not ideal in terms of their ease of use, cost or practicality, let alone the range of available 3D content.”
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