LOSTCIRCUITS

Summary

Dimension Technologies Inc are promising to revolutionize the world of 3D gaming with what could best be described as the first 3D flat panel monitor on the market. The concept is overwhelmingly simple, yet solving the details was still a matter of some 14 years. The current display, avialable in 15.1" and 18" viewable area diameter is probably the best 3D solution available at this point. There are still some drawbacks inherent to the design, mostly the requirement to maintain a relatively narrowly defined viewing position. Nonetheless, this new concept offers a tremendous advantage over any other solution I have seen so far. Implications of the new technology, which is compatible with any graphics card capable of 3D rendering, reach far beyond the scope of gaming into design, molecular, pharmaceutical and medical applications. If the technology catches on, it will take any current computer a quantum leap closer to virtual reality. At the current prices, this means that Virtual Reality could become an affordable household item

DTI3D 18" Virtual Window. Using parallax illumination, the flat panel is able to generate 3 dimensional illusions, in other words, a 3D display that leaves the physical boundaries of the display.

In the true sense of the word, 3D acceleration or 3D graphics in their current form are misnomers since conventional displays (excluding holographs) are always flat. Still, we are talking about 3D displays because representation of a 3D environment involves all three dimensions and an illusion of depth is generated by perspective, shadow casting, differential reflections to generate bumps. Additionally, the overdraw of the foreground hiding the background provides occlusion cues that the brain is capable of perceiving as depth. On the other hand, a 2D representation of any 3D environment does lack a certain depth and there have been quite a few attempts to overcome this limitation. Before going into the different technical solutions, it is probably best to briefly cover the issues related to depth perception.

The Problem

The key issue is that in the normal environment, objects are at a different z-plane from the viewer. That is, there is a real difference in distance between the eye and objects at different z-planes. In an artificial environment that relies on display or representation of images on a screen, the distance to the viewer has to be fixed, with the exception of a globe (pseudo-3D) theater.

The Physiology of Depth Perception

What is the basis of 3D perception? Pretty much everyone knows that, using a single eye only, almost completely eliminates depth perception. Surprisingly, however, people that are used to monocular vision have depth perception, even if it is not as well developed as with others with two functional eyes. Several cues enable this cyclopean depth perception:

• The state of accommodation of the eye. The autonomous nervous system that innervates the intraocular muscles to adjust the lens for near or far vision, sends a status report to the brain that can be interpreted to judge distance. Needless to say, that this mechanism not very accurate.
• Other mechanisms include occlusion and perspective, that is if one object is partially hidden by another, a logical consequence would appear that it is situated behind it.

• In addition, signals governing the eye muscles (extraocular muscles) are copied (efferent copy) from the Edinger Westphal nucleus (controlling the oculomotor muscles) to higher centers in the brain, where the angle between the optical axes of the two eyes can be used to triangulate the position of an object in the z-space.
• Binocular disparity: For most humans, the highest priority in terms of processing depth cues is known as binocular disparity. Binocular disparity in stereopsis works by comparing the relative position of the images projected on the retina and, therefore, its resolution is directly correlated to the Vernier acuity of the eye, which is, coincidentally, the highest resolving power of the human eye. Because of the precision of this mechanism, it is not surprising that binocular disparity overrides other visual cues.

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