3D TV system under development ("WIRED" Dec 1996, Page 72)

[P3D Bill Costa - UNH Computing & Information Srvs <W_COSTA@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  [ Copied from the "scans" section of "WIRED" magazine.  December 1996,    ]
  [ page 72.  Editorial note: the device being described is what some       ]
  [ Sci-Fi authors have called a "tank".  That is, the images are contained ]
  [ within a volume of space and can be viewed much like observing the fish ]
  [ in a fish tank.  I can see how this will work for the original          ]
  [ application domain -- a radar display, and it will be wonderful for     ]
  [ displaying computer graphs, star charts and similar `data'.  But it is  ]
  [ hard to imagine how it would be used for anything like typical TV       ]
  [ programming.  First, how would your "record" arbitrary live objects     ]
  [ for this format.  And second, if you could do this, wouldn't the effect ]
  [ of watching actors within the represented volume be like watching a     ]
  [ puppet show?  (I also question some of the author's description of how  ]
  [ the device works.)                                                      ]


                                Coming at You

    In 1980, when I was 13, I wore weird glasses at the movies to watch
    Dracula get speared on a 15-foot lance.  His heart looked like it was
    dangling inches from my face.  It was my first 3-D experience.  After
    the show, I remember listening to my best friend, a sci-fi geek, tell
    me about holographic TV, like that chess game on _Star_Trek_. [?]

    Seventeen years later, the idea of holographic television has faded
    from sight, but a viable 3-D entertainment system is about to hit the
    market.  "This is truly a 21st-century technology," says Parviz Soltan,
    a researcher at the US Navy's Command, Control, and Ocean Surveillance
    Center outside San Diego and the main developer of the prototype.

    Visualize a double-helix-shaped television screen.  Now spin that
    screen at 10 rotations a second -- fast enough to make it invisible to
    the human eye.  Put the double helix into a clear cylinder and stick a
    mirror on top.  Using red, green, and blue lasers -- the same
    tripartite colors used in ordinary television systems -- you can
    project an image onto the mirror and into the cylinder.  The beam hits
    the helix and creates a visible point of light.  Currently there are
    120,000 possible points, called voxels (think 3-D pixels), that can be
    illuminated on the helix, and the computer running the show is fast
    enough to change the image up to 20 times a second.

    Most of Soltan's early work wasn't directed at television but at
    designing better monitors for air traffic controllers.  Now he has
    created a working, three-dimensional version of a radar screen, which
    will undergo testing with the Federal Aviation Administration.

    Meanwhile, the NEOS Corporation is developing a commercial version of
    Soltan's 3-D TV.  Museums, theme parks, and planetariums have expressed
    interest, but to get on the bandwagon, they'll need pockets as deep as
    Disney's.  When 3-D TV hits the market early next year, the price tag
    for a small version is expected to be around US$80,000.  Thereafter ...
    the sky is the limit.  -- Steven Kotler

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