What's the Holdup With 3-D Monitors?

[Jasen Betts]

On 2010-06-10, Bret Cahill <BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors. Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

to do that you'd need to print the top polarizer directly over the LCD
cells (instead of putting in on the outside of the display) and then
overprint polariser in a checker-board or striped fashion with
optically active substances to get the 90 or (+45 and -45) degree shifts

I don't think polarisers can be printed.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

that can be done by overlaying a bare liquid-crystal cell over
the top polariser, and wearing cross-polarised glasses

It should also be easy to make stereo compatible with mono vision, if
only by just giving them one image.

The patents of inventions on 3D monitors seem to be making it more
complicated than what it needs to be.

If you want to get rich find a way to cheaply fabricate a thin
polarizer.


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Chazwin]

On Jun 10, 4:23 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

It should also be easy to make stereo compatible with mono vision, if
only by just giving them one image.

In addition to the large video market you spend 75% of your time on
Sketchup changing views to "see" the thing in "3D."

The patents of inventions on 3D monitors seem to be making it more
complicated than what it needs to be.

Bret Cahill

3D monitors are already here.
Try and google it sometimes.

 

[Giga2]

On 10 June, 21:07, Nicolas Bonneel <nbonn...@cs.ubc.ca> wrote:

Bret Cahill wrote:
Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

That's basically done : a lot of samsung LCD monitors are already
"stereo compatible" and use this polarization fact. It's not even
advertised.
I'm not sure though what is the pattern of pixels and what polarization
is used (vertical/horizontal, diagonals, circular...).

And to answer Giga2, there are indeed passive 3d monitors. Still
expensive and not very high resolution though.

Cheers

Yes I was told it was pretty good though, but cost I think about

Ł100,000 and used a lot of kit (wouldn't fit in your average living
room even if you could pay for it). They reckoned in a few years
though..

 

[Giga2]

On 11 June, 10:02, Chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Jun 10, 4:23 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:



Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

It should also be easy to make stereo compatible with mono vision, if
only by just giving them one image.

In addition to the large video market you spend 75% of your time on
Sketchup changing views to "see" the thing in "3D."

The patents of inventions on 3D monitors seem to be making it more
complicated than what it needs to be.

Bret Cahill

3D monitors are already here.
Try and google it sometimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy

 

[Bob Myers]

On 6/10/2010 9:23 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors. Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

And that's exactly how some current "3D" (stereoscopic) monitors work;
a patterned polarizer (generally, patterned such that alternating rows of
pixels are used for the L- and R-eye images) on the LCD, plus passive
glasses with matching polarization for each eye.

The other major type currently in use is the "shutter glasses" type, in
which the LCD is operated at twice the normal frame rate and the
stereo image pair is presented in field-sequential fashion, with LCD
"shutters" in the glasses synced with this presentation so as to prevent
each eye from seeing the other eye's image.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. There's also a hybrid
type, usually referred to as the "active retarder" type, which uses an
additional LC layer to alter the polarization of the entire image at once,
and again the L- and R-eye images are presented in field-sequential
fashion. I don't believe this has been commercialized yet, but several
LCD makers have shown demos of this method.

The problem with both of the field-sequential types is that it is relatively
difficult (as compared with doing the same thing on a larger TV panel)
to get monitor-sized, high-resolution panels to run at the pixel rates
required for the 120 Hz operation.

Bob M.

 

[Zerkon]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:23:45 -0700, Bret Cahill wrote:

What's the Holdup With 3-D Monitors?

http://www.iz3d.com/

http://www.guru3d.com/news/asus-pg276hworlds-largest-full-hd-3d-monitor-/

 

[whit3rd]

On Jun 11, 3:57 pm, Bob Myers <nospample...@address.invalid> wrote:

On 6/10/2010 9:23 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

No one seems to have pointed out, that that is VERY HARD.
LCD monitors depend on a polarizer, and those are mass-produced
in UNIFORM SHEETS not in the mosaic as described above.
It takes two, one between the backlight and liquid crystal panel,
and one between the panel and the viewer.

And that's exactly how some current "3D" (stereoscopic) monitors work;
a patterned polarizer (generally, patterned such that alternating rows of
pixels are used for the L- and R-eye images) on the LCD, plus passive
glasses with matching polarization for each eye.

I've heard of this done with multiple projectors, onto a single
screen; that's
actually easy to do. The left and right images, of course, aren't
formed
in the same place, just viewed in the same apparent position.

The other major type currently in use is the "shutter glasses" type, in
which the LCD is operated at twice the normal frame rate and the
stereo image pair is presented in field-sequential fashion, with LCD
"shutters" in the glasses synced with this presentation so as to prevent
each eye from seeing the other eye's image.

My SGI Indy has a shutter-glasses video output, but it wasn't for
LCD imaging because few LCD displays can update fast enough: it was
for CRT systems (at 60 Hz, each eye sees 30 flashes per minute; that's
not too bad, motion pictures were flickery at 24 Hz and are commonly
flashed at 48 Hz with few complaints). The shutter glasses
were LCD items, but the lit screens were CRT, I believe.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2010-06-14, whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 11, 3:57 pm, Bob Myers <nospample...@address.invalid> wrote:
On 6/10/2010 9:23 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

No one seems to have pointed out, that that is VERY HARD.
LCD monitors depend on a polarizer, and those are mass-produced
in UNIFORM SHEETS not in the mosaic as described above.
It takes two, one between the backlight and liquid crystal panel,
and one between the panel and the viewer.

all you need to do is add a mosaic of left-hand and right-hand optical isomers
over the top of the front polarizer, enough for 45 degrees each way,

this means the front polariser needs to be close to the pixel element
to avoid parallax errors.

stack-up something like this


backlight

back polarizer

substrate (thick plastic or glass)

colour filter

wiring, TFT etc

liquid crystal

"backplane"

front polarizer

twister/repolarizer mosaic

front cover (thick plastic or glass)



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Bob Myers]

On 6/13/2010 7:07 PM, whit3rd wrote:

On Jun 11, 3:57 pm, Bob Myers<nospample...@address.invalid> wrote:

On 6/10/2010 9:23 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:


Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors. Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

No one seems to have pointed out, that that is VERY HARD.
LCD monitors depend on a polarizer, and those are mass-produced
in UNIFORM SHEETS not in the mosaic as described above.
It takes two, one between the backlight and liquid crystal panel,
and one between the panel and the viewer.

Actually, it's not that hard. There are many 3D monitors being sold
today which use exactly this sort of patterned polarizer. (Not many
LCD panels, if any, are actually sold that way by their manufacturer,
however - very often, the original polarizer is removed by a third party
and replaced with a new patterned polarizer film to convert the panel
for "3D" use.)

The other major type currently in use is the "shutter glasses" type, in
which the LCD is operated at twice the normal frame rate and the
stereo image pair is presented in field-sequential fashion, with LCD
"shutters" in the glasses synced with this presentation so as to prevent
each eye from seeing the other eye's image.

My SGI Indy has a shutter-glasses video output, but it wasn't for
LCD imaging because few LCD displays can update fast enough: it was
for CRT systems (at 60 Hz, each eye sees 30 flashes per minute; that's
not too bad, motion pictures were flickery at 24 Hz and are commonly
flashed at 48 Hz with few complaints). The shutter glasses
were LCD items, but the lit screens were CRT, I believe.

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market. It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

On 6/14/2010 11:59 AM, whit3rd wrote:

"backplane"

front polarizer

twister/repolarizer mosaic

and the mosaic has to be aligned to subpixel resolution across the
whole surface
of the display? Sounds hard to me. Do they print the mosaic with
an inkjet of some
sort? How do they get uniform density and achieve flatness?

Actually, the stack as given above is not quite right. The original "front
polarizer" is removed before the patterned polarizer is applied (if it
weren't, it would just be costing you more light).

LCD polarizers are applied as adhesive films, and you're right, the
patterned version used for "3D" monitors do have to be aligned to
better than subpixel resolution - say, on the order of 0.01-0.02 mm.
But with current processing equipment, that's not all THAT difficult.

Bob M.

 

[whit3rd]

On Jun 14, 3:34 am, Jasen Betts <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2010-06-14, whit3rd <whit...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 11, 3:57 pm, Bob Myers <nospample...@address.invalid> wrote:
On 6/10/2010 9:23 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

No one seems to have pointed out, that that is VERY HARD.
LCD monitors depend on a polarizer, and those are mass-produced
in UNIFORM SHEETS not in the mosaic as described above.
It takes two, one between the backlight and liquid crystal panel,
and one between the panel and the viewer.

all you need to do is add a mosaic of left-hand and right-hand optical isomers
over the top of the front polarizer, enough for 45 degrees each way,

this means the front polariser needs to be close to the pixel element
to avoid parallax errors.

stack-up something like this

   backlight

   back polarizer

   substrate (thick plastic or glass)

   colour filter

   wiring, TFT etc

   liquid crystal

   "backplane"

   front polarizer

   twister/repolarizer mosaic

and the mosaic has to be aligned to subpixel resolution across the
whole surface
of the display? Sounds hard to me. Do they print the mosaic with
an inkjet of some
sort? How do they get uniform density and achieve flatness?

 

[Bret Cahill]

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

No one seems to have pointed out, that that is VERY HARD.
LCD monitors depend on a polarizer, and those are mass-produced
in UNIFORM SHEETS not in the mosaic as described above.
It takes two, one between the backlight and liquid crystal panel,
and one between the panel and the viewer.

Actually, it's not that hard.  There are many 3D monitors being sold
today which use exactly this sort of patterned polarizer.  (Not many
LCD panels, if any, are actually sold that way by their manufacturer,
however - very often, the original polarizer is removed by a third party
and replaced with a new patterned polarizer film to convert the panel
for "3D" use.)

The other major type currently in use is the "shutter glasses" type, in
which the LCD is operated at twice the normal frame rate and the
stereo image pair is presented in field-sequential fashion, with LCD
"shutters" in the glasses synced with this presentation so as to prevent
each eye from seeing the other eye's image.

My SGI Indy has a shutter-glasses video output, but it wasn't for
LCD imaging because few LCD displays can update fast enough: it was
for CRT systems (at 60 Hz, each eye sees 30 flashes per minute; that's
not too bad, motion pictures were flickery at 24 Hz and are commonly
flashed at 48 Hz with few complaints).   The shutter glasses
were LCD items, but the lit screens were CRT, I believe.

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market.  It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.

Yet another planned obsolescence scam.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bob Myers]

On 6/14/2010 2:51 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market. It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.

Yet another planned obsolescence scam.

I hesitate to ask - but I'm sure the answer will at least have some
entertainment
value: How so?

Bob M.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Bret Cahill wrote:

Yet another planned obsolescence scam.

Complain to your parents. Your birth was their scam.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Rock Brentwood]

On Jun 10, 10:23 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

The only definition of "easy" that means anything is "easy for me to
do". Therefore, it is illogical to complain about what is -- by your
own account -- a huge and easy money-making opportunity, as opposed to
actually doing something about it.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

This is something I've been thinking about the last few days, ever
since scanning in some stereophotographs I took while experimenting
with 3-D photography back in 1979. (They may actually be the only 3-D
pictures of various landmarks in the local area, such as the recently
taken-down pedestrian brodge and river-view across the Fox River in
Waukesha, and the Lannon, WI quarry (which is now a park).

Stereophotographs -- like 2-D drawings -- are not actually 3-
dimensional. And the way in which they fail to be 3-D is extremely
relevant to what you're seeking for. The same problem occurs with
stereo.

The 3-D nature is an optical illusion and it only persists as long as
you sit still. That's why you can get away with it in theatres. And
even then, there is only one vantage point that gives you the correct
view. All other vantage points are false and distorted.

If you move around while looking at a stereophoto (or listening to
stereo sound), you'll see that the picture moves with you instead of
doing "around the corner" compensation, as a REAL 3-D picture should
-- i.e., a hollograph.

So ... if you tie the monitor to a person, the question then is: WHICH
person? If there are 2 or more people, who gets dibs on being the
"designated correct point of view"?

Otherwise, you're going to be putting glasses on everyone and having
the glasses doing customized image perspective compensation.

And then you have other problems. "Just doing it" misses an important
point: how is the information actually encoded and transmitted. You're
talking about volummetric coding, unless you do simple left & right
scans. But if you do left & right scans then (barring some heavy duty
client-site borderline AI image analysis) you're not going to be able
to compute different perspectives in real time off of it. So, it's
going to be volumetrically encoded. Otherwise, you're stuck with
single-perspective stereophotography and NOBODY gets to be the
vvantage point.

The volummetric coding section of the JPEG 2000 standard has only been
ratified in the last couple years. I don't know what MPEG is doing.

If you REALLY want to make headway, this is the right way to go. Skip
all the nonsense about volumetric coding, a' la JPEG. Instead, use the
same "storage format" that holographs actually use. Call this
"holographic coding". But the difference is that this is not done with
an analog holograph, but is done as a 3-D -> 2-D compression method to
allow volumetric images to be coded by computer into 2-D formats. It's
the computer that codes the image (or dedicated hardware).

With volumetric coding based on a digitized version of what (analog)
holographs do, you can begin to discuss the possibility of setting up
real-time image perspective-(re)construction methods, deriving
different perspectives from the 2-D coded image in the very same way
that a 3-D image is produced from a holograph (hologram, I forget
which uses -graph and which uses -gram).

Note, we're not talking about actual holography here, just digital
storage and compresion methods that mimick the kind of 3-D -> 2-D
volumetric coding a holograph does. That could serve as a replacement
for a volumetric coding standard, potentially even suitable for
transmissions and (with the improvement in technology) even potential
implementation in bona fide 3-D rendering viewers somewhere down the
line.

 

[Bret Cahill]

Stereo vision should be easy with LCD monitors.  Just polarize every
other pixel one way and the remaining half 90 degrees.

The only definition of "easy" that means anything is "easy for me to
do".

You take your vehicle tires off the rims yourself?

When there's a tire shop down the street why waste time doing
something manually or waste money on tire equipment you'll only use it
once every 2 years?

Therefore, it is illogical to complain about what is -- by your
own account -- a huge and easy money-making opportunity, as opposed to
actually doing something about it.

The appeal of "making your own pen knife" as Thoreau suggested in
_Walden_ is for greenolas, not tech incendiaries.

If the orientation of each pixel could be changed back and forth
quickly enough then both images could come from the same set of
pixels.

This is something I've been thinking about the last few days, ever
since scanning in some stereophotographs I took while experimenting
with 3-D photography back in 1979. (They may actually be the only 3-D
pictures of various landmarks in the local area, such as the recently
taken-down pedestrian brodge and river-view across the Fox River in
Waukesha, and the Lannon, WI quarry (which is now a park).

Stereophotographs -- like 2-D drawings -- are not actually 3-
dimensional. And the way in which they fail to be 3-D is extremely
relevant to what you're seeking for. The same problem occurs with
stereo.

The 3-D nature is an optical illusion and it only persists as long as
you sit still. That's why you can get away with it in theatres. And
even then, there is only one vantage point that gives you the correct
view. All other vantage points are false and distorted.

If you move around while looking at a stereophoto (or listening to
stereo sound), you'll see that the picture moves with you instead of
doing "around the corner" compensation, as a REAL 3-D picture should
-- i.e., a hollograph.

So ... if you tie the monitor to a person, the question then is: WHICH
person? If there are 2 or more people, who gets dibs on being the
"designated correct point of view"?

I'm mostly interested in stereo CAD.

The "Orbit" tool in SketchUp wastes too much time.


Bret Cahill

Otherwise, you're going to be putting glasses on everyone and having
the glasses doing customized image perspective compensation.

And then you have other problems. "Just doing it" misses an important
point: how is the information actually encoded and transmitted. You're
talking about volummetric coding, unless you do simple left & right
scans. But if you do left & right scans then (barring some heavy duty
client-site borderline AI image analysis) you're not going to be able
to compute different perspectives in real time off of it. So, it's
going to be volumetrically encoded. Otherwise, you're stuck with
single-perspective stereophotography and NOBODY gets to be the
vvantage point.

The volummetric coding section of the JPEG 2000 standard has only been
ratified in the last couple years. I don't know what MPEG is doing.

If you REALLY want to make headway, this is the right way to go. Skip
all the nonsense about volumetric coding, a' la JPEG. Instead, use the
same "storage format" that holographs actually use. Call this
"holographic coding". But the difference is that this is not done with
an analog holograph, but is done as a 3-D -> 2-D compression method to
allow volumetric images to be coded by computer into 2-D formats. It's
the computer that codes the image (or dedicated hardware).

With volumetric coding based on a digitized version of what (analog)
holographs do, you can begin to discuss the possibility of setting up
real-time image perspective-(re)construction methods, deriving
different perspectives from the 2-D coded image in the very same way
that a 3-D image is produced from a holograph (hologram, I forget
which uses -graph and which uses -gram).

Note, we're not talking about actual holography here, just digital
storage and compresion methods that mimick the kind of 3-D -> 2-D
volumetric coding a holograph does. That could serve as a replacement
for a volumetric coding standard, potentially even suitable for
transmissions and (with the improvement in technology) even potential
implementation in bona fide 3-D rendering viewers somewhere down the
line.

 

[Bret Cahill]

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market.  It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.

Yet another planned obsolescence scam.

I hesitate to ask

You openly admit you are incurious?

This is juicier fare than debating if designers knew how to set things
up for a 3D stereo monitor market!


Bret Cahill

 

[Bob Myers]

On 6/14/2010 9:27 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market. It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.


Yet another planned obsolescence scam.

I hesitate to ask

You openly admit you are incurious?

I hesitated, but I DID ask. And you didn't answer.

Bob M.

 

[Bret Cahill]

LCD-based (meaning LCD as the display device) shutter-glasses 3D is
also now on the market.  It's much more common in LCD TVs than monitors
at present, due to the difficulty of driving smaller high-resolution
LCDs at the
requisite pixel rates, but it IS starting to come to the monitor market
as well.

Yet another planned obsolescence scam.

I hesitate to ask

You openly admit you are incurious?

I hesitated

That's just a waste of time.

IP is kind of like the marine tattoo, "kill 'em all and let God sort
'em out." Just focus on getting the ideas out as much as possible and
let the marketplace decide.


Bret Cahill