Lunch & Learn: Step out of the plane: The 3rd dimension is next for consumers with Doug Dixon

Doug Dixon, an inde­pen­dent tech­nol­ogy con­sul­tant, author, and speaker spe­cial­iz­ing in dig­i­tal media, pre­sented an overview of the bur­geon­ing mar­ket for con­sumer 3D devices– as well as explain­ing the tech­nol­ogy behind those devices– this past Wednes­day at OIT’s Lunch n’ Learn session.

Armed with an array of 3D view­ers, from a stere­o­scope (invented in the late 19th cen­tury), to a View­Mas­ter (invented in the late 1930s), to the Magic Eye books (pop­u­lar­ized in the last two decades)–to the lat­est in 3D cam­eras (a Fuji FinePix 3D)–Dixon proved to his audi­ence that 3D tech­nolo­gies have already expe­ri­enced a long his­tory in home enter­tain­ment, par­tic­u­larly in the area of vic­ar­i­ous travel and spe­cial events.

The suc­cess of recent films such as Avatar, and the 3D-capable and 3D-ready TVs now avail­able in the con­sumer mar­ket, intro­duce the lat­est chap­ter in the 3D expe­ri­ence. These dis­plays promise view­ers a new, more immer­sive way to enjoy movies and broad­cast TV at home.

3D tech­nol­ogy for movies and tele­vi­sion is not actu­ally as great a tech­no­log­i­cal leap as was the recent tran­si­tion from low– to high-definition in broad­cast TV, Dixon explained. Many cur­rent blu-ray play­ers will only require firmware upgrades to be able to dis­play 3D images; some 3D-ready TVs on the mar­ket now only require a moderately-priced upgrade kit to be able to dis­play images in three dimen­sions. Exist­ing 2D media will also be able to be ‘dimen­sion­al­ized,’ and trans­formed ret­ro­spec­tively into 3D video for those films that war­rant this enhance­ment. For most con­sumers, tran­si­tion­ing to 3D tech­nol­ogy should be rel­a­tively pain­less, should they wish to upgrade their cur­rent home equip­ment when pur­chas­ing their next TV.

The glasses cur­rently required to view 3D TV con­tent, how­ever, are a shift from the sort of home view­ing prac­tice to which we have grown accus­tomed. “Glasses are a com­mit­ment to focus on the enter­tain­ment,” Dixon explained, a ded­i­ca­tion to the screen that is at odds with many kinds of TV con­tent. At the same time, the glasses “are an imped­i­ment to the social aspect [of watch­ing a movie or broad­cast TV at home].”

“HD works for every­thing, includ­ing Jay Leno;” said Dixon, . . “3D works for spe­cial events and movies and things like that, so I think there’s a lit­tle less demand, a lit­tle less lever­age you get by going to 3D, but in niches like games, for exam­ple, [3D is] going to be very suc­cess­ful.” Dixon remarked by way of exam­ple that watch­ing a bas­ket­ball game at court level was noth­ing short of “spectacular.”

Dixon out­lined the tech­nolo­gies that under­lie 3D dis­plays to his rapt audi­ence (all of whom were given 3D glasses in order to view sev­eral images of 3D tech­nol­ogy done right — and wrong. “You don’t turn a 3D cam­era side­ways,” Dixon pointed out, after show­ing one par­tic­u­larly dis­ori­ent­ing 3D image that elicited groans from the audience.

Inex­pen­sive 3D glasses with magenta and cyan lenses–such as the ones Dixon gave to his listeners–use col­ored lenses to achieve an anaglyp­tic effect that sim­u­lates three dimen­sions. Movies such as Avatar used more expen­sive polar­ized lenses to achieve a more nat­ural effect. Home 3D sys­tems come equipped with shut­ter lenses that coor­di­nate with images pre­sented sep­a­rately to each eye in rapid suc­ces­sion. These glasses, which cur­rently retail for about $150– pro­vide an addi­tional social imped­i­ment to the 3D expe­ri­ence at home — “are you going to buy 40 pairs of these glasses when your friends come over to watch the big game?,” Dixon asked.

While the con­sumer mar­ket has so far set­tled on either anaglyp­tic tech­nol­ogy for view­ing 3D con­tent on 2D screens or shutter-glasses and trans­mit­ter tech­nol­ogy for ded­i­cated 3D TVs, Dixon explained that cre­at­ing 3D images was some­thing that any­one with fairly basic imag­ing tools could achieve. Dixon demon­strated the new 3D YouTube chan­nel, and showed var­i­ous ways of mak­ing 3D images with a 3D cam­era. He also showed some inex­pen­sive com­puter soft­ware for cre­at­ing 3D images. In all cases, images of the same scene, taken approx­i­mately 2.5 inches apart, were used to repli­cate the stereo qual­ity of human vision.

3D, Dixon explained, is not only for block­buster films; it can be enjoyed by any­one who owns a decent com­puter and basic pho­to­graphic equip­ment, and it can be enjoyed at very lit­tle cost.

“3D is com­ing,” Dixon con­cluded, “and it’s lots of fun to play around with. I hope you enjoy it!”

More infor­ma­tion about the many tech­nolo­gies described by Doug Dixon can be found at this link to his web­site, Man­i­fest Technologies.

Links to a pod­cast from this ses­sion have been posted; the pod­cast will also be avail­able on the Princeton’s iTunesU chan­nel ded­i­cated to the Lunch n’ Learn series. (For more infor­ma­tion about Lunch n’ Learn pod­casts at iTunesU, click here.)

The next Lunch n Learn talk take place on Wednes­day, Decem­ber 1st. Matthew Sal­ganik, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Soci­ol­ogy at Prince­ton will speak on Bottom-up Social Data Col­lec­tion with www.AllOurIdeas.org, a research project to develop a new form of social data collection.

For more infor­ma­tion about this, and other upcom­ing talks, visit the Lunch n’ Learn homepage.

[Photo cour­tesy rialee on Flicker.com (Rebecca Cot­trell). CC license, 2009.]