VISIDEP (was: Alaskan 3D tape)

[P3D Andrew Woods <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Weir wrote:
> A long time ago (like in the range of 15 years perhaps) I was watching
> a tv newscast (or something on Discovery, or the like) talking about
> a new stereo/video technique. They showed a brief sample on a football
> game which involved dollying down the field. Now this sounds like Pu - 
> but I wasn't wearing any glasses. The amazing thing was that when the
> switched back to the announcers, they had the tape running on a monitor
> behind them (must have been gen-locked - I didn't see any noise bars or
> anything) and while the announcers looked normal, the taped looked 
> 3D even on the *monitor* behind them! 
> 
> There was very noticible flicker, though. I seem to recall it had been
> developed by some Universitery researchers at an east coast school, and
> they were looking for development/production money. Later on there was
> some comment on it, with them saying it was a very simple effect, but
> they wouldn't say exactly what they were doing.
> 
> I assume the flicker was so objectionable that they never got anywhere
> with it.

This particular system is called Visidep.  It develops a 3D like effect
by way of Motion Parallax.  Things at different distances move by 
different amounts.  The Flicker rate was usually in the order of 5-10Hz.
It was developed by McLaurin & Jones of University of South Carolina.
A paper describing "A Three-Dimensional Imaging Laparoscope" which used 
visidep is in "Stereoscopic Displays and Applications II", Proceedings
of the SPIE vol. 1457, pp318-321.

Andrew Woods.


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