The new technology eliminates the need for special glasses to view 3D images, and allows multiple viewers to watch the screen from different angles without any ill effects.
"It will take about five years to become a household consumer product," James Kopsidas, managing director of VR21 (the Australian company that is working with the German owners of the technology, 4D-Vision, to market the technology in Australia) told ZDNet Australia . Currently a 50 inch 3D screen costs around AU$40,000, but Kopsidas expects the price to come down.
Humans see depth by combining two slightly different images from the eyes, and 3D technology works by projecting different images to each eye from a flat surface. This is commonly achieved by wearing special glasses that use a variety of ways to alter the image to each eye -- usually some sort of filter that eliminates one of two images shown on the screen.
VR21 moves the filter from the eyes to the screen. A wavelength specific filter array is overlaid across the screen that directs the light from the image in different directions depending on the colour of the wavelength. The result is that each eye of a viewer receives a different image, giving a 3D effect.
The system currently creates eight different perspectives of the scene to be shown, either by filming with eight separate cameras or using computers to render the images. This results in some transitional areas which have a false image, and a small movement of the head is required to view the right picture. The more images that are shown on the screen the more areas that show a 3D image, however this is limited by computational power.
"The system is dependent on a computer, the images are being rendered in real time," said Kopsidas. "The faster the computer runs the better the image runs." At the moment a PC -- AMD 1400 MHz + GeForce 3 graphics card -- is required for real time video playback, but a set top box is planned as a receiver for digital broadcasting, paving the way for digital 3D-TV.
Current flat screens can be converted to 3D by applying the filter over the screen, however the filter cannot then be removed. The 2D mode suffers a slight resolution loss in the process.
Other companies are also researching different methods of delivering a 3D image, such as Philips' HDI 5000, which uses volume rendering to produce 3D ultrasound images to improve diagnoses.
