"Enhanced Depth Technology?" [long]

[P3D Morris Keesan <keesan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's a slightly condensed interesting article from the April 29, 1996
issue of "ADVANCE for Occupational Therapists", copied without permission:

_EDT: Like 3D, but Without the Headache_
by Claudia Stahl, ADVANCE Assistant Editor

...
With one of the latest products to come out of the labs of American
Medical Productions, anyone with a VCR can appreciate a surgeon's-eye
view of wonders hidden by epidermal layers, as well as the layers
themselves.

	American Medical Productions (AMP) is using a technique called
Enhanced Depth Technology (EDT), created by Trimensional Media Inc. in
Los Angeles, to give medical videos and other products amazing clarity
and depth.  Viewers see recorded images as they would first-hand.
"Our system works just like your eyes," explained Rich Zarro, vice
president and director of operations at Trimensional Media.  "It's
like looking through a window.  You're seeing real depth."

	...Viewers get a true sense of the spatial distance...

	Viewers can appreciate the layered, realistic effect of EDT by
simply watching a TV screen.  But when viewers wear special glasses,
they enjoy enhanced depth and realism.  Images feel and look as if
they can be touched.

	I'm sure by now you're thinking, big whoop; this technology was
available 40 years ago; it was called 3D, and it gave me a headache!
According to Zarro, the principle is similar, but the technology is
different.  The traditional 3D effect, explained Zarro, "is an off-set
picture that through polarization allows the picture to come off the
screen because of the way it is shot.  You'll never get that effect in
TV because the screen is not large enough.  A total 3D experience
involves the mind, eyes (peripheral vision) and (one's) psychological
make-up."

	With EDT, viewers still see an image with extraordinary depth and
clarity even when they take off the glasses (they will not see the
red/blue, out-of-focus image that they would if they were watching a
3D movie without the glasses).

[Description and marketing hype about the contents of tapes for medical
students omitted.  AMP is also developing a series of videos for consumers.]

	The video series, titled "Inside Medicine," will be shot in EDT
and can be viewed with 3D glasses.

	...

	The tapes will soon be available through an infomercial...

	Neither AMP nor Trimensional Media intends for EDT to compete with
technologies like virtual reality.  For one, EDT does not simulate the
feeling of actually being part of the set-up.  In fact, some virtual
reality products use EDT to create the backgrounds.  Also, EDT is much
less expensive.

<end of copied article>

Leaving aside for the moment the marketing hype, the usual confusion
between anaglyphic and polarized 3D, and the other inaccuracies ("the [TV]
screen is not large enough" for stereoscopy), does anyone here know
anything about Trimensional Media, or "Enhanced Depth" technology?  From the
little bit of technical description given here, i.e. the image can be viewed
without glasses, but looks better with glasses, I'm guessing that it's
some kind of variation on the ChromaDepth technique that's used in the
Wendy's comic books.

I searched on the Web for Trimensional Media, and all I came up with
is the following, from the directory of the International Teleproduction
Society (http://www.itsnet.org/):

Trimensional Media
2514 North Ontario St.
Burbank, CA 91504
(818)846-6062
FAX: (818)846-5745
SERVICES PROVIDED: Graphics/Special Effects, Computer Animation, 3D TV and Film

I'm not quite curious enough about this to make a transcontinental phone call,
but if someone closer to Burbank is interested enough to investigate and report
back to the list, that would be nice.


------------------------------