[photo-3d] R: Autostereoscopic Movies - 3-D without Glasses

["sergio baldissara" <winter@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd like to share yor enthouosiam, but since the 1997 article
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/mes/Research/Groups/vvr/vrsig97/proceed/008/ha
sdpape.htm
I didn't hear any more about Trayner-Orr's project... have you got any fresh
news?
Sergio
Original message
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 10:20:21 -0800
   From: Ray Zone <r3dzone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Autostereoscopic movies

Autostereoscopic Movies - 3-D without Glasses

by Ray Zone

    The recent invention in Great Britain of a low-cost autostereoscopic
display system called RealityVision by artists David Trayner and Edwina Orr
may portend the future of 3-D movies.  RealityVision technology uses a
standard full-color Liquid Crystal Display panel, a backlit point light
source, a Fresnel lens and an horizontally striped optical element (HOE).
So far, RealityVision can only be used with small CRT displays but the low
costs involved, and emerging large flat panel display technology suggest
that we may soon be viewing autostereoscopic movies delivered digitally with
a similar process.
    3-D without glasses is the Oholy grail¹ of stereography.  And, not
surprisingly, various 3-D pioneers have created over the last century
different forms of autostereoscopic imagery.  These systems have generally
employed either lenticular screens or a barrier grid array and are
generically classified under the name of Oparallax stereogram.¹  In addition
to inventing in the 1890¹s the color OKromskop¹ stereo camera and anaglyph
movies in the 1920¹s, stereographic innovator Frederic E. Ives set forth the
principle of the parallax stereogram camera with a classic patent in 1902.
    Subsequently, the Russian film-maker Semyon Ivanov expanded upon the
principles Ives established and produced a short parallax stereogram motion
picture  titled OFilm Concert¹ in 1941.  Ivanov completed filming of the
world¹s first feature-length autostereoscopic motion picture titled
ORobinson Crusoe¹ in 1946.  ORobinson Crusoe¹ was photographed on 70 mm film
with side-by-side stereo images having an aspect ration of 1.37 to 1.  A
special 180-seat theatre had been constructed in Moscow for viewing these
films and the screen grid consisted of a large number of parallel copper
wires stretched from top to bottom  and regularly spaced.  The stereo films
were back-projected over an area about 14 feet high and 19 feet wide.
    Autostereoscopic movies played at the Moscow Stereokino for 18 years and
four additional theatres were built in Russia to utilize the grid screen.
Two additional features were reputedly produced in the parallax stereogram
process, OLalim¹ based on a Chekhov story and OAleko¹ from a poem by
Pushkin.   Ivanov kept tinkering with the projection screen and experimented
with an embossed lenticular sheet and a glass screen using etched and ruled
vertical lines.
    Ivor Montagu, in his book OFilm World,¹ has described the limitation of
Ivanov¹s parallax stereogram movies:  ³The disadvantage of this system is
that  you must sit just so, for your two eyes to see the two images as one.
A slight shift of the head and their coincidence is lost and you must
wriggle in your seat until you find them Oright¹ again.²  Even so, many
reviewers of the films were enthusiastic.  About ORobinson Crusoe,¹ one of
them wrote,  OOut in the auditorium, about three rows in front of you,
leaves and lianas materialize in the air, dangle and dance, and float away
into Crusoe¹s face.²
    The great Russian film-director Sergei Eisenstein, after seeing Ivanov¹s
work, stated, ³To doubt that stereoscopic cinema has its tomorrow is as
naive as doubting whether there will be tomorrows at all.²