That’s it for the 3D series. The following articles were released under the 3D Series besides this one.

• 3D Sound
• 3D TV
• 3D Printing
• 3D Holograms
• 3D Games
• Figureprints
• Nintendo 3DS Release
• Fun Technology
• 3D is Coming

What I have attempted to show is the incredible breadth of 3D technology and that the current push for 3D is reinforced by the different demand areas. For example, in games, TV and games and so this time 3D technology is likely to move past the gimmick nature of the past and as it becomes integral and useful to the overall entertainment experience we will see more and more quality 3D entertainment and 3D becomes accepted as the norm.

One of the interesting things about 3D technology is its role in the change in focus from taking ourselves to places and experiences, to taking places and experiences to ourselves.

What I mean by this is traditionally we used to go to the movies, or go to our holidays or our workplace, or to the shops and so on. What I see for the future, which is already beginning, is all these places coming to us instead. In a way that could mean the old sci-fi dream of teleporting might be irrelevant in reality.

Holography allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and then reconstructed so that when an imaging system (a camera or an eye) is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even though the object is no longer present. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes in exactly the same way as if the object were still present, thus making the image appear three-dimensional. The holographic recording itself is not an image – it consists of an apparently random structure of either varying intensity, density or profile.

Holography was invented in 1947 by the physicist Dennis Gabor. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for this technology.

The most common type of hologram experienced by people today is on a credit card or various other item identification protection systems. It’s often symbolic of official but not really that attractive even though it does indeed give the 3D effect.

Full volumetric 3D holography was first recorded in 1962. Cheap solid-state lasers, such as those found in millions of DVD recorders have helped make holography much more accessible to low-budget researchers, artists and dedicated hobbyists.

One of the more interesting examples of holography I discovered was via a friend who works in management. Instead of spending wads of time and cash flying over for meetings they use this room described in the video below which allows direct realistic communication in a boardroom style. According to him the experience was very good and vaguely ghost-like.

Holography can let us go beyond being locked inside a TV to have 3D in real space.  There’s more to it though as the immersion of the system is being worked on to involve more than just images such as the following “touchable holography” work involving hand tracking and ultrasonic sensual feedback.

With the coming 3D wave, brilliant minds have been busy perfecting the technology. This amazing development involved doing away with the glasses for a more ..uh.. natural experience.

3D is being improved upon in real life too by carefully editing inconvenient gravitational constants.

The last one in this link is a strong lesson on the problem of 3D glasses headaches and is apparently real unlike the others. It seems to work by allowing only one half of the 3D image through the glasses for 3D movies relying on polarisation technology, which is common in cinemas.

One of the reasons I’m fascinated by 3D games is my early exposure to it. Along with that is a degree of wariness about the hype and gimmick nature that 3D gaming can be.

Early 3D gaming started in the 80s. I remember playing a very basic binocular style 3D shooter which seemed to be based on LEDs used in a similar style to the LCD handheld games popular in the day. I wish I could remember what the device was called and more importantly where it went after all these years. It was not a Vectorex. It was my first 3D game and inspired me to create very simple anaglyph stereoscopic images on my Amiga 500, which I viewed with an old glasses frame replaced with coloured cellophane I pinched from somewhere. I hoped for the day where 3D was better than my poorly drawn volumetric shapes.

That day seems to have come.

3D TV means three dimensional television. These televisions allow you to view content like TV channels, movies and console games in 3D. At the moment most TVs work in 2D which is a flat image with width and height. 3D adds the third dimension of depth as well giving better directional perception and a more ‘solid’, more realistic experience.

The currently leading 3D TVs use active shutter stereoscopy which delivers the 3D content in 1080p in HD. The active shutter stereoscopy works by using glasses in phase with the display. These give the eyes different view fields in rapid succession, letting only one eye see the image at a time. These separate images seamlessly come together to form a smooth 3D video experience.

When I looked at the effect I found the 3D experience quite good so the functionality isn’t a problem. However, there are problems and they are all fairly easily, albeit slowly overcome.

When I looked in JB HiFi yesterday I saw two different complete packages costing around $AU3,000 all up including the generously sized screens, 3D blue ray movie player and sound system. The 3D movie titles aren’t too expensive, seemingly at the usual prices. The glasses are around $150 a pop which is quite a sum of money if you want multiple viewers.

That is an awful lot of money and there wasn’t a lot of choice available either. However, these technologies are usually expensive when they first hit the market. The price will become more reasonable as competition and production steps up. For now they are indeed confined to the early adapter niche.

We need to get back to those glasses. Wearing glasses to view a TV is a serious problem for 3D TV. Samsung are aware of the cost problem and have reduced the price of those glasses on one of their new 3D TVs. Apart from the cost and discomfort there is the issue of what happens if you have more people than you have glasses to watch something. If the glasses break you have to find another pair.

How often do we lose the remote? Will the glasses be similar where one spends time hunting them down?

If you want to glace at something on TV you have to put on the glasses first then take them back off again after. These 3D TV glasses are incompatible with other 3D TVs and use power. Thus they need to be recharged.

It all adds up to quite a pile of inconvenience. Inconvenience which is avoidable. 3D TVs which don’t use glasses are already underway but it will take time to rollout. I don’t foresee 3D TV doing spectacularly well until this problem is better dealt with.

This brings us to another problem. Again a problem with newly released technology. 3D TV is in the early stages and what is available today could well be incompatible and inferior to newer models as the technology matures. Particularly in light of those glasses. This is likely to slow down early sales and therefore the drive for 3D content for TV.

Of course this problem has been encountered and overcome many times before in consumer products.

That content is the next issue. Movies are one thing and they will likely pick up in number quite rapidly. However, as actual TV, in Australia at least, there’s not much on. Trials have been conducted including the 2010 AFL grand final with good success. There’s been soccer and rugby too which shows that sport is a good medium for 3D entertainment. Foxtel plans to make 3D content available this year.

Internationally it is a mixed bag but a similar story of not enough content. Sky 3D broadcasts in Europe and channels such as 3net and ESPN 3D broadcast in the US.

Clearly the demand for 3D content will bring more in time but it could well take a couple of years to really shape up. There will be some push beyond just the viewers who own 3D TVs. Advertisers realise the extra immersion of 3D might make a difference in the effectiveness of their advertising. Advertising also often works better in a novelty environment. The 3D TV manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony are also trying to help the content situation with business partnerships.

Another major driving force behind 3DTV sales is going to be via consoles. Sony claims the Playstation 3 is 3D capable with a firmware upgrade but since consoles rely on TVs for display purposes 3D gaming needs 3D TVs. If 3D gaming takes off, and chances aren’t too bad that it will, there’s going to be a pressing need for 3D TVs.

Some 3D TVs include a 2D to 3D content converter which takes regular 2D imagery and adds the extra dimension using image recognition software. I am not sure about the results from this kind of feature.

The last significant problem 3D TV faces are medical issues. Samsung released a rather long list of possible side effects such as altered vision, lightheadedness, dizziness, involuntary movements such as eye or muscle twitching, confusion, nausea, loss of awareness, convulsions, cramps and/or disorientation. Naturally this is more about litigation phobia and the need for some common sense but there’s a lot of commentary about 3D headaches and eye strain. There is a clear need for 3D viewing experiences which are free of these issues.

Overall, 3D TV faces some very difficult issues but has a lot to offer. In some cases it may change the way TV is done. For one thing online content or content streamed internationally might have an edge. This could mean more or less international TV stations being even more prominent than currently.

3D could be creatively used in things like game shows or could boost the immersion in documentaries. Instead of flat weather images we could actually see cloud cover expected in our area tomorrow, for example.

One development we might see is a more free reign camera, similar to what can be experienced in games. TV camera angles are currently confined to the real position of the camera but with 3D technology and spatial transforms the viewing angle could be adjusted quite a bit depending on image resolution and the number of cameras in use. I think we might see this in major sport replays first.

So does 3D printing have any potential in games? Of course, just as it will probably impact so many industries. One can already print one one’s own character as a figurine.

One of the most basic applications I have seen is over at FigurePrints where they print out your very own World of Warcraft characters or Xbox LIVE avatars. You plonk down the dough (currently $US130 for a statue) and then you import your favourite character’s data which is as easy as selection. You then pose that 3D model and it’s ready to go to print. These figurines are printed on Z Corp Spectrum Z510 colour printers in Vancouver. Naturally this company has been swamped with requests. I have no doubt competition will come if it hasn’t already, including to other games and entertainment media.

All that is needed is the game company to provide the 3D data. Most games are already 3D based so there’s not much in the way. Many TV and movie studios can also go down this route, albeit there is less customisation in such media.

Imagine. One day you too will have your very own fully functional, exploding, rocket chicken. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.