3Rd Dimension Veritas Et Visus August 2009 Vol 4 No 7/8
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
3rd Dimension Veritas et Visus August 2009 Vol 4 No 7/8 Avatar, p4 NASA, p16 Shapeways, p21 LBO, p48 Letter from the publisher : Final Destination…by Mark Fihn 2 News from around the world 5 Conference summaries SIGGRAPH 2009, August 3-7, 2009 32 Web3D Symposium 2009, June 16-17 38 Projection Summit, June 15-16, 2009 43 SID Display Week, June 2-5, 2009 46 FINETECH Japan, April 15-17, 2009 53 Electronic Displays, March 4-5, 2009 56 SD&A Conference, January 19-21, 2009 59 SpaceSpex anaglyph by Michael Starks 68 Is Anaglyph in Our 3D Future? by Chris Chinnock 74 Hologlyphics: a creative system for autostereoscopic movies by Walter Funk 76 The 3D Interface by Fluppeteer 81 The game developers have spoken, are you in? by Neil Schneider 86 3D game review: Trine by Eli Fihn 89 Looking ahead at a 3D film and TV future with Avatar by Alexander Lentjes 92 Increasing frame rates of liquid crystal displays by Adrian Travis 94 Showing 3D at trade shows and conferences by Bernard Mendiburu 96 Perceptual Paradoxes by Ray Zone 99 The Truth about 3D TV: Questions… by Lenny Lipton 103 Last Word: Half a century of stereoscopic viewing…by Mike Cook 105 Calendar of events 107 The 3rd Dimension is focused on bringing news and commentary about developments and trends related to the use of 3D displays and supportive components and software. The 3rd Dimension is published electronically 10 times annually by Veritas et Visus, 3305 Chelsea Place, Temple, Texas, USA, 76502. Phone: +1 254 791 0603. http://www.veritasetvisus.com Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Mark Fihn [email protected] Managing Editor Phillip Hill [email protected] Contributors Chris Chinnock, Mike Cook, Eli Fihn, Fluppeteer, Walter Funk, Alexander Lentjes, Lenny Lipton, Bernard Mendiburu, Neil Schneider, Michael Starks, Adrian Travis, George Walsh, and Ray Zone Subscription rate: US$47.99 annually. Single issues are available for US$7.99 each. Hard copy subscriptions are available upon request, at a rate based on location and mailing method. Copyright 2009 by Veritas et Visus. All rights reserved. Veritas et Visus disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks or names of others. Veritas et Visus 3rd Dimension August 2009 Final Destination… by Mark Fihn I learned the other day that the Cineplex in my home town of Temple, Texas now has 4 screens that are 3D-capable, so I no longer need to drive to Austin or Dallas to catch the latest 3D flick. But this past weekend, I made the decision to go drive to Austin anyway, so that I could check out the first ever 3D film to be combined with D-BOX Motion Code. My 15-year old daughter made the trip with me; she is a fan of horror films and so was hopeful to get a good showing. Well, Final Destination is certainly not the worst film ever made, but it’s reasonably certain that no Academy Awards nominations will be coming its way… Although hyped as a horror film, the audience was laughing as much as cringing. The D-BOX hype went: “This was the first time D-BOX's immersive technology was combined with 3D technology, offering moviegoers the opportunity to enjoy an unparalleled cinematic experience where they can watch the action in three dimensions and live the extraordinary sensations of onscreen action. D-BOX's motion-enhanced seating provides an unmatched, realistic and immersive experience, utilizing refined subtle motion effects that work in perfect sync with the onscreen action”. Well, I was quite impressed by the D-BOX technology – the movement in the seats was well-linked to the action on the movie – accentuating the immersive feel of the movie and punctuating the thrills of the 3D experience. Both my daughter and I were quite impressed. Twenty of the seats in the theater were equipped with the D-BOX Motion Code, requiring a special reservation. The price was a bit of a gulp. Regular prime-time prices for 2D movies at this theater are $8.75. The 3D films generally add a $2.00 premium, bumping the price to $10.75. The D-BOX seats were $19.75. Although I enjoyed the sensation, I probably won’t spring for that sort of premium too often in the future. That said, all of the D-BOX seats at this showing were sold – while perhaps 50% of the remaining seats were left empty. Although I personally rank this film as a “horrible film” – and not as a “horror film”, I must admit that the 3D effects were spectacular. No subtlety in this one – blood and guts and sharp objects were constantly leaping out of the screen, but it worked. I walked away with no feeling of nausea and didn’t notice many horrible 3D visual violations during the showing. So from that perspective, the movie was well done. One of the fun parts of the film is that one of the main scenes took place at a movie theater (see image to the left) – which was showing a 3D horror film. An interesting perspective to actually be in a 3D theater while the film’s action is in a 3D theater… 2 Veritas et Visus 3rd Dimension August 2009 Amazing, in its first weekend, early estimates from the Hollywood.com Box Office projected that Final Destination bagged $28.3 million for a #1 berth. Although just over half its 3,121 theaters were screening the flick in 3D, fully 70 percent of its box office take was from 3D theaters. The best part of attending Final Destination is that one of the 3D previews was for Avatar – the much ballyhooed film by James Cameron that will hit the theaters in mid-December. The preview was captivating – obviously a very imaginative movie with some amazing effects. And the 3D was simply stunning. On Friday, August 21, James Cameron and Fox debuted a 15-minute 3D trailer of Avatar in select IMAX theaters in the US and select international 3D digital and IMAX cinemas. Even for only a 15-minute glimpse, tickets were hard to come by – reservations for all showings were completely booked. A “teaser trailer” of Avatar was posted on iTunes on Thursday, August 20, and by Sunday, Fox announced that the trailer had become iTunes' most-viewed trailer ever. The teaser registered over 4 million streams in its first day on the site (more than doubling the previous record of 1.7 million). Many are writing that Avatar will be the make-or-break movie for the fledgling 3D market. It’s easy to imagine that if the movie is hugely successful that it will accelerate 3D in the movie theatre, and perhaps even accelerate it into the home. If the movie is a dud, I’m not sure that it will actually be that big a detriment to the future of 3D. The success points have already been demonstrated at theatre after theatre – but I’m ready for a real blockbuster to showcase the 3D format(s) and am eager to see the show. 3 Veritas et Visus 3rd Dimension August 2009 No matter how Avatar ends up doing at the box office, I am quite comfortable predicting that it will fare better than Final Destination. The preview of Avatar unquestionably was the highlight of my Final Destination experience… While at the Austin theater to see Final Destination, one of the previews promoted live showings of Monday Night Football. Although not in 3D, the ads are clearly leading people to gain comfort with the idea of these event showings at the movie theater. I’ve now seen two live basketball games in 3D, as well as two pre-recorded concert events, and I am a strong believer that such events will ensure the future of 3D in the theater venue. Although Monday Night Football (at least for the near term) is not scheduled to be shown in 3D, the marketing is clearly shifting people’s mindsets in that direction… I should also mention that I continue to believe that the early entrée for 3D into the home will be via the gaming market – with TV following later. And Avatar will no doubt help spark that move, since Ubisoft will be introducing an enhanced 3D game version of the movie. To the end of helping popularize 3D gaming, a bevy of companies recently banded together to form the Stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) Gaming Standards & Advocacy Group. Some of S3DGA's founding companies include Blitz Games Studios, DDD, iZ3D, Jon Peddie Research, TDVision Corp, and XpanD. The President and CEO of S3DGA will be Neil Schneider. You can read Neil’s article later in this newsletter which more fully describes the activities of the new advocacy group. An introductory S3DGA meeting will be held during the 3D Entertainment Summit. This conference is considered the largest of its type, and features industry leading names including: James Cameron, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and countless more. 4 Veritas et Visus 3rd Dimension August 2009 3D news from around the world compiled by Mark Fihn and Phillip Hill Infocus DepthQ HD 3D projectors used in VR room at the University of Louisiana Carolina Cruz-Neira, professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-inventor of the CAVE virtual reality environment, has incorporated three InFocus DepthQ HD 3D projectors into her design of a new VR immersion room that she and her team of researchers built at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for a collaboration with the Human Research and Engineering Directorate of the US Army Research Lab. The InFocus DepthQ HD 3D projectors create stereoscopic HD 3D video images on the walls of the three-sided VR immersion room while an omni-directional treadmill, which serves as the floor, allows research subjects to travel non-stop in any direction through the virtual reality 3D world.