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Gadgets Philips Demonstrates 3D Displays at CES
Marcus Yam (Blog) - January 9, 2007 6:30 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 17 comment(s) - last by SpatulaCity.. on Jan 14 at 6:02 PM

2D-plus-depth format: for each pixel in the 2D image (left) a greyscale bitmap (right) indicates if the pixel will be visualized in front (white) or behind (black) the screen plane

A simulated image of the 3D display at "The Mart" - Hope that they're not going to cry over that

Two Grass Valley HD Cameras to capture things stereoscopically

With this camera setup and a 3D display, school kids can swing into your living room
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands shows off its 2D-to-3D conversion software and its results

At CES 2007 Philips Electronics is showcasing the capabilities of its 3D content-enabling software for converting existing high-definition 2D commercials and professional stereo video footage into 3D for visualization on Philips’ professional 3D displays.

Philips’ 3D displays, using “WOWvx” technology, deliver 3D effects without the need for special glasses or filters. These professional displays aimed at use inside shopping malls, casinos, restaurants and museums where the 3D displays are used as a differentiator, immediately grabbing the attention of the visitor.

To support its customers in the creation of the 3D content, Philips has developed a suite of 3D content-enabling software, to unlock the customer’s new and existing material for visualization in 3D using the ‘2D-plus-depth’ format. This includes plug-ins for animation software, OpenGL Control for real-time applications, and semi-automated video conversion from 2D to 3D as well as real-time stereo to 3D conversion tools.

Philips’ semi-automated 2D to 3D conversion tool can use existing HD 2D video as input. An operator can manually indicate depth information to key-frames. The software uses these to automatically calculate the depth information for each of the image frames of the remaining part of that scene. At CES, Philips is showing a commercial that has been converted from the original 2D material into barrier bursting 3D.

HD stereo video footage can be converted in real-time with Philips’ stereo to 3D conversion tool. It calculates the depth information using the disparity between the left and right image. To demonstrate the potential of visualizing stereo video, Philips is showing a production that was created using a stereo HD two camera setup. (Two cameras are needed to capture stereoscopic information, similar to how your two eyes are used to percieve depth.)

Philips’ WOWvx 3D content enabling software, Open GL Control and the 3D animation software plug-in are now available from the company. The semi-automated 2D-to-3D conversion tool and the Stereo-to-3D tool will be commercially available in Q2 of 2007. Moreover, from February 2007 onwards, Philips will provide semi-automated 2D to 3D conversion and Stereo to 3D content conversion services to selected customers.

Philips is focusing first on the professional application market for its 3D displays, but company representatives said that the goal is to bring the 3D experience to the wider consumer entertainment market, hopefully into gaming and home theater.

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Nice
By Merry on 1/9/2007 11:47:35 AM , Rating: 2
Something like this would certainly grab my attention if it were used in a museum or public place, i suppose further in the future, if adopted by the public in any scale, it would be good for games, just imagine using something like this with a Wii! The possibilities are endless..

I'd also like to add I've always been a fan of Philips, indeed its probably the only brand name I'd ever pay a premium for, and that says something given that I'm a not-so-well off student!




RE: Nice
By vdig on 1/9/2007 12:05:35 PM , Rating: 2
You mean the images actually do seem to jump out of the screen? Make it affordable, and I'm sure it would take off.

Wii + this tech? Holy cow, I can actually see my remote touch the character's face, see my avatar's hand overlap the knob right in front of me, and see sharp teeth come down on my character just in front of me, making it seem like the monster was just beside me. Drool worthy concepts to put together, if you ask me. Then the mind wanders into the gutter, and....


RE: Nice
By bldckstark on 1/9/07, Rating: -1
RE: Nice
By phusg on 1/9/2007 1:02:58 PM , Rating: 5
No.


RE: Nice
By PAPutzback on 1/9/2007 1:25:21 PM , Rating: 2
Porn drives tech the most. That is fact. For example. Sony would not let porn video have the rights to be on Beta.


RE: Nice
By vdig on 1/9/2007 1:31:09 PM , Rating: 2
I was merely jesting, but I agree that porn does have significant muscle when it comes down to it. There is a reason it is humanity's oldest profession.

Mind you, the fact that this technology opens up many new concepts, especially for interactive media, is the real reason I'm hyped for it. Imagine manipulating data windows, screens and web "pages" by making contact with the window frames that is sticking out from the screen. That would be incredible.


RE: Nice
By Oregonian2 on 1/9/2007 2:05:58 PM , Rating: 2
3D porn has been around for a long time, including videos. Although I don't have a copy to testify as to it's quality, I've seen 3D porn DVD's for sale on eBay (I look for everything 3D, one of my key searches). There are technical problems (flicker primarily) with 3D videos shown in the otherwise higher quality field-sequential format on "regular" definition TV (I've some 50's 3D movies in that format on VHS tapes, also from eBay). There are ways around the flicker, but are rather spendy (glasses w/built-in TV's, but ones with 3D modes).

There are 3D nude photos taken in the nineteenth century (and ever since then). 3D "porn" isn't new. :-)


RE: Nice
By frobizzle on 1/9/2007 3:11:36 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
just imagine using something like this with a Wii! The possibilities are endless..


Oh yeah...the number of TVs destroyed, the projectile injuries would be exponentiated from the "flying wiimote" syndrome! LOL!


3D
By Oregonian2 on 1/9/2007 1:48:21 PM , Rating: 1
I'm curious as to what they mean by "stereo to 3D conversion". Stereoscopic *IS* 3D, converting "away" from "stereo" is becoming less 3D, in terms of viewing anyway. 3D photography has been around since the mid nineteenth century, and display has always been the problem. I hope philips has figured out a way of presenting a stereoscopic image from many viewing angles and w/o eyewear being needed. That's been the holy grail being chased after. Most (all) displays that I've seen that say they do that have been disappointments to me. Some made for a single user have been very good though. So maybe theirs works.

P.S. - Anyone interested in seeing world-class stereoscopic (3D) images and video, this year the U.S.'s National Stereoscopic Assn is having their convention together (unusual) with the International Stereoscopic Union in Boise this summer. See http://2007.nsa3d.org (I'll be there). Another reference is http://www.3dcenter.us which is a museum/art_gallery dedicated 100% to 3D art and photography.




RE: 3D
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 2:05:57 PM , Rating: 2
> "I'm curious as to what they mean by "stereo to 3D conversion". Stereoscopic *IS* 3D..."

No, Stereoscopic merely implies two 2D images. Stereoscopic imaging is how our vision represents a 3D image, but thats a different thing entirely.

> "I hope philips has figured out a way of presenting a stereoscopic image from many viewing angles and w/o eyewear being needed..."

Somehow I doubt they've made any huge strides here. This is probably a slightly upgraded version of the usual stereoscopic display, which (promo pics aside) has limited viewing angles, image artifacts, etc.


RE: 3D
By Oregonian2 on 1/9/2007 2:16:50 PM , Rating: 2
With the point of the display being to present a stereoscopic image to the viewer's eyes (by whatever means) it seems a divergence. I would assume they're trying to build a 3D database representation of sorts that gets converted into whatever mechanism they're using which then gets seen back again as a stereoscopic image by the eyes looking at it, but it seems like it's going the long way around and will lose accuracy and quality along the way. Makes sense if the source is 2D, but doesn't seem so for a 3D source. It reminds me of a presentation a few years ago by some company (not Philips) who converted things into a format that included a depth-map. Their display that had all the same sort of advertising descriptions but looked pretty poor (IMO) 3D-wise. I wonder if it isn't just that company's technology with Philip's name on it.


pr0n
By ElJefe69 on 1/10/2007 1:09:38 AM , Rating: 2
This is the first year that porn was not the leading industry in sales dollar volume on the internet. all the amazon, ebay, whatever, dwarfed to a speck compared to titties.

pr0n

the first thing that was on blu-ray was porn over a year before it debuted. Theres a wall of porn for hd. 3d will be driven by it as well.




RE: pr0n
By Brand0 on 1/10/2007 6:06:29 AM , Rating: 2
Yup. As someone mentioned earlier, some blame the failure of Betamax on the fact that porn wasn't allowed. Poor Betamax... I guess thats just the world we live in.


No one is going to question this?
By pyrosity on 1/10/2007 12:28:09 PM , Rating: 2
Is no one going to question how the display actually manages to project images out of the screen? For a tech/hardware site, I am astonished that so many of the readers just passed this by without thinking to question how the display actually achieves its 3D effect.




By SpatulaCity on 1/14/2007 6:02:45 PM , Rating: 2
Kinda late comment, but I actually saw this at CES last week. The images looked decent with moderate 3d effects. The display was some kind of flat LCD or Plasma tv on the wall. The best viewing position was directly in the center about 10 feet waay. As you moved side to side you would see a kind of lenticular screen (look that up on Wiki, took me 10 mins to get the right name)effect going on.


Specifications
By praeses on 1/9/2007 12:39:52 PM , Rating: 2
I'm curious to when they will be releasing the resolution, contrast ratio, brightness, and most notably, viewing angle.

I would imagine the viewing angle would be rather limited for the full effect of these displays.




Horror movies in 3d :S
By Rockblaster13 on 1/10/2007 1:42:46 AM , Rating: 2
Man this 3d technology is going to be awesome.
I can already seeing me jumping out of my chair when watching a horror movie!!! :S




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