Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk
Posted on February 27th, 2009 by David Bayon
Do you actually want 3D?
While researching an upcoming feature, I found a link from the BBC. Entitled “Why 3D is about to break through“, it explains the exciting world of 3D movies and projection, before concluding that it “looks like the future of 3D is firming up.”
Only trouble is, the article was from over a year ago. Since then I’ve been to see Beowulf at the IMAX, and toyed with an old game on one of Zalman’s monitors, but I can hardly say 3D leapt out at me through 2008.
This year, though, is different – one look at the barrage of 3D TVs launched at CES is enough to realise that. But while the industry hypes it, I’m intrigued to know whether you, the consumers, are actually interested in 3D at all. Going to a movie once in a while is one thing, spending your own money on kit is another entirely.
So, is it something you’d consider investing in? And, gaming and movies aside, are there any applications for which you see 3D being genuinely useful?
12 Responses to “ Do you actually want 3D? ”
Leave a Reply
Categories
- About the bloggers
- Green
- Hardware
- How To
- Just in
- Microsoft Office 2010
- Newsdesk
- Online business
- Random
- Rant
- Real World Computing
- Software
- View from the Labs
- Windows 7
Authors
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
advertisement
February 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
One possibility is CAD – I imagine being able to “see” a house in 3D must be helpful.
February 27th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
It just strikes me as awkward in every way for ordinary TV watching…
February 27th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
As long as you have to wear special glasses to watch this new wave of 3D (as I believe you still have to) I won’t consider investing in it.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I have seen several special effects movies in IMAX cinemas where the viewer has to wear special glasses to see the 3D. Yes the effects are impressive, especially the roller coaster, but the one thing I remember above all of that is the fact that it gave me eye strain and an intense head ache within 10 mims. The reason for this was that because your brain “sees” 3D, it instinctively tries to refocus the eye on things that it believes to be further away than they really are, in an attempt to bring them into focus but in reality all parts of the 3D image were the same distance away (because they were projected onto a flat screen) and were thus as “in focus” as they were ever going to be. If 3D TV is anything like this it will be a non-started for me – has anyone else suffered this way?
February 27th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Only having one eye that works kind of takes the joy out of 3D for me ¿¿¿¿
February 27th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Yes, when displays provide 3D at the same resolutions as current non-3D ones do.
We’re still forced to use a 2D desktop UI, but working in a 3D environment would be a truer reflection of the real world we inhabit.
It can’t come soon enough.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Oh, by the way, I was referring to lenticular displays.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Having seen a few 3D things I’d place them alongside those bloody “stare at this and cross your eyes and a 3D train (it was always a train) will appear” pictures.
Yes, the effect works. No, I wouldn’t want to sit staring it for longer than a very short number of minutes.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I’m a doctoral researcher studying 3D without using stereo. Disparity (eg conventional 3D) is pretty much just useful for looking at Magic Eye pictures. That’s why the world doesn’t look like a painted sphere when we close one eye. Paul, you’re spot on, when we see what we perceive as distant objects, the eyes try to focus on the horizon and are set to parallel.. And if we’re doing that, then there is no disparity anyways… This is the very opposite of what conventional 3D does with close range accommodation and convergence. Disparity is good for scrutinizing nearfield objects, and has the property of being scalable so that we can exaggerate it to make things stand out unnaturally (not to mention look tiny due to miniaturization effects of hyperstereo). These problems are being solved one by one but you only have to look at the recent broadcast of rugby or American football in ‘3D’ where half of the cinemas had the channels the wrong way round so that people were getting a pseudoscopic image. Guess what, most people didn’t realise…
So there are some of the problems. I’m working on the solution – if anyone is interested give me a heads up!
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Having just returned from taking the family to Bolt 3D (surprisingly enjoyable) and seeing the ads for all the forthcoming 3D movies it’s clear that the animation studios are keen. But I think that’s largely technology and novelty driven ie it’s relatively simple to render 3D animations and currently folk are willing to pay a premium and more likely to pay to see it a second time. The 3D worked fine but it really didn’t add a huge amount. Basically I don’t think that people see the screen as flat so 3D is filling a hole that isn’t there.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:58 am
As long as it requires special glasses etc. I think it is going to be a non-starter. If they get a breakthrough in holographic display technology, then they might be onto something, but I won’t be queuing up for a 3D TV anytime soon…
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[...] the 3D. Yes the effects are impressive, especially the roller coaster, but the one t…
…