SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Applications Conference (was: egghead stereo??)

[andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Andrew Woods)]

telscope@xxxxxxxxxx (Peter Abrahams) wrote:
> It was noted that the video in question was by A. Woods.  I have been
> wondering if he (or any reader) attended the Jan/Feb 96 SPIE Conference.
>  I noted on a web page (Woods' or SPIE's,) a scheduled paper on stereoscopic
> X-rays.  I have not been able to get back to that page, and am consumed with
> curiosity as to the relevant events at the conference.

Several readers of this list attended the conference as I was routinely
made aware when people would come up and say hello and say that they saw 
my posts to photo-3d.  In fact three (maybe four) of the program 
committee are on this list too - hello John and Mike. :-)

The conference was a very successful event.  Probably the most pleasing 
aspect (from an organiser's point of view) was the large number
of demonstrations.  People can tell you about a new type of 3D system
until they go blue in the face but you just won't get an appreciation
for what they are talking about *until* you see the actual device, system or
photographs.  You've just got to be able to experience the 3D view
yourself.  There were no less than 12 stereoscopic displays on show in
the dedicated demonstration session.

In my opinion, the most notable and novel display of the conference was
from Richmond Holographic Studios.  They have an autostereoscopic display
based on an LCD panel and a holographic optical element (HOE) which casts 
half the pixels to one eye and the other half of the pixels to the other eye.
Like most autostereoscopic displays the head must be in the correct position
to see the stereo image but with the addition of eye tracking this 
could be overcome.  Other advantages of the display are that it can quickly
and easily be converted to 2D.  Depending upon the HOE used, side viewers
will only see in 2D or see other 3D viewing zones.   Their email address
is "rhs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

I will include the preface of the conference proceedings which includes
a list of all the demonstrations.

As with most of the past years' conferences, we had stereo slides projection
and stereo video projection equipment available during the conference.
A good number of presentations used stereo slides and/or stereo video.
The breaks were also a good chance to show stereo slides and video which
didn't necessarily relate to any of the presentations.  
Probably the best set of slides was shown by Shojiro Nagata.  The slides
were from a book published by Shogakukan Publishing of Japan.  They showed
a number of famous artworks converted to 3D.  The conversions were
absolutely fantastic and showed an absolutely flawless attention to detail
on the part of the author/artist/programmer (whatever he should be called).
If anybody is interested in details, drop me a line and I'll try to
find out some further information.

Of course, there were the conference presentations themselves, there
were some shining lights, but at this point I'm running out of steam
and I really should do some real work.  I will comment on the specific
paper asked about - stereoscopic X-rays.  Paul Evens from Nottingham
Trent University (UK) spoke about the stereoscopic X-Ray systems they
have been developing for use in Airports (to scan people's baggage).
Very interesting paper and a very interesting slides.

The conference proceedings will be available shortly from SPIE.
The title is "Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems III"
and is proceedings volume number 2653.  contact SPIE for further
information "http://www.spie.org".  The pre-publication price was
US$64.  The proceedings will contain about 40+ papers.

Last of all, if you weren't there, sorry you missed it...
It will be on again next year - around the beginning of February 1997.
Stay tuned for more info.

+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Andrew Woods   | Centre for Marine Science and Technology,      |
|                 | Curtin University of Technology,               |
|       _--_|\    | GPO Box U1987, Perth W.A. 6001, AUSTRALIA.     |
|      /      \   | Email: WOODS_AJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx               |
|   -->\_.--._/   |     or Andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx            |
| Perth      v    | WWW: http://info.curtin.edu.au/~iwoodsa        |
|                 | Phone: +61 9 351 7920     Fax: +61 9 351 2377  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+

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----------- Conference Proceedings Preface ---------------------------------
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Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems III,
S. S. Fisher, M.T.Bolas, and J. O.Merritt  Editors
Proc. SPIE 2653 (1996)

This volume of proceedings, Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality
Systems III - SPIE 2653,  combines the presentations from the conference on
Stereoscopic Displays and Applications VII, and the complementary
conference, The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality III.

The conference on Stereoscopic Displays and Applications VII continued for
the seventh year in 1996 with its emphasis on new developments in the
hardware and software technologies involved, as well as on applications
that illustrate the user-interface issues and cost/benefit tradeoffs of
stereoscopic 3D displays.  In particular, this focus on human-machine
interface research and applications requirements is intended to help guide
future development and evaluation of 3D display technologies.  For both
real-world and computer-generated images, there is a need for display
techniques that permit the user to perceive objects in their relative
spatial locations and to move through the display space and manipulate
objects easily and accurately. The objective of this conference was to
permit practitioners and researchers from industry and academia to exchange
current information on stereoscopic 3D display techniques and applications.


The conference commenced with a half-day session on Autostereoscopic
Displays chaired by Andrew Woods.  Papers in this session presented recent
worldwide developments in the display of stereoscopic imagery that does not
require special glasses or viewing technology encumbering the user.