3D Without Glasses - Spatial View

Okay. Don't wait. Don't look up other references. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $300.00. Go directly to Spatial View.

I know, the site is sort of cheesy. Well, it's 3D!, fer Chrissake! It's supposed to be cheesy.

Today our Interactive Multi-Media class enjoyed a visit from James Hurley of Spatial View, makers of 3D hardware (and software) that DOES NOT NEED GLASSES(!)

Okay, I'm a 3D fanatic from waaaayyyyy back. If you look at my camera collection you'll find a 3d camera and viewer and if you dig around a little more you'll find pictures of the kids - in 3D - taking a bath (and other exciting subjects). You have not lived until you see dirty bath water and soap bubbles in 3D.

Going back even further, you might know of a theatre director named Jim Warren. Jim is now a distinguished director of live theatre but at one time he was a penniless actor with a brilliant comic turn. He played a clown called "Jerome" who more or less sat on the stage, tried to get peanut butter out of an empty peanut butter jar and, out of sheer frustration (which turns to joy), threw bread at the audience. You had to be there. He also used an (unused) toilet plunger. I saw his show several times and even helped tape it for cable tv.

Well, we started talking and the idea developed to film Jim's show in 3D and install it at the Science Centre as an example of how we perceive depth. (As a side to a side to a side note I cannot find any sort of link for Jim. He's around. We bumped into each other at a party last year and, if I find the money he would - just for this one time - reprise "Jerome" for the 3D camera.)

So how does this "3D without a camera work? Let's get technical.

Do you remember those 3D postcards? That's one technique called Paralax Barrier. The other is called Lenticular Overlay. This is the technique were the eyes in the postcard actually follow you, or one image morphs into another (think of tacky religious images). In both cases, the quality of the image relies on many views broken into tiny pieces and arranged in such a way that one eye will see images from the right and the other from an angle slightly to the left. The effect is not truly three dimensional, more like a series of flat images arranged one behind the other.

Spatial View manufactures a screen overlay and some software to go with it. Clip the glass over your laptop screen, the camera in the computer finds your eyes, adjusts the image (which then shifts to color) and you are looking at a bright and shiney 3D image on your own personal computer. You will soon be able to buy an adapteer for your iPhone and you can play video games with it as well.

You can download plug-ins for several software packages (including Flash which uses the layers to situate images in space. No word on how it might work with the newly introduced Z access in cs4.) The idea that the software can convert 2D programs into 3D sounds interesting but, of course, it depends on how it does so. Flash now allows us to work with depth with the same ease we are used to in placing objects to the right, left or up and down. Now if you make the depth into DEPTH!

James Hurley mentioned a few things about the 3D plug-ins and the most interesting was the plug-in for games. This plug-in does not modify the code, instead it takes the rendering information for the video card and renders several versions of each image so that each eye will view the scene from it's own perspective. This happens in real time and is nothing short of brilliant. Well, we did not see it but it's brilliant anyway.

Look for an iPhone viewer in a few months. You can buy a 19" 3D viewer right now and a smaller (but very bright) screen for your laptop in the spring.

There are a few cool links you might want to explore:
If you've always wanted to go to Mars but just haven't had the time you can visit NASA and the JPL for stereo pics sent to us from the Mars Rover. (glasses required).


Long live 3D! May Blood spurt onto the audience forever!

You can find some nice 3D images on Flickr but you will need to hold a piece of paper sideways to the screen and sort of go cross eyed in order to get the effect.

But, really, the best experience is the Original! Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3D!!!!! I don't think it's coming to a multiplex near you but for only $18.00 (less than two tickets and much less than two tickets plus popcorn) you can see what you missed.

At 3D-Geek you can find Andy Warhol's Frankenstein in 3D. You must be over 18 and twisted for this one.

I can vouch for it. You won't be sorry. (and you can sell the dvd on Craigslist when you are finished watching).

GestureTek - Developing for the Premier's Awards

IMM Class at GestureTek.

Perhaps one of the best things around Interactive Multi-Media (the program that I am swimming through - don't be fooled, swimming is neither easy nor graceful) is that we have the opportunity to develop real projects.

Last term my group (a team of four classmates) made a game for the Girl Guides of Canada. Here's a link to the Girl Guide site but I don't know if our game is up yet. It's called Cookie Frenzy. If you're older than 12 expect to have trouble with it. If you're younger than 12 expect to finish in about 15 minutes.

This term we will be using the ground breaking technology from GestureTek. I enjoyed Vincent John Vincent's history of the company because it reminds me of the time when when bands used to incorporate light shows with their performances. Jefferson Airplane would have huge globs and swirling shapes on an enormous screen behind the band. Early GestureTek consisted of virtual instruments which Vincent John Vincent played from a virtual environment on the stage. Same sensibility. (insert your own reference to drugs here).

From art to advertising, mostly. GestureTek software and hardware is now used to delight children enough to pester their parents into buying the latest toy. But not entirely. The ability to capture real motion in real time and to apply this to virtual worlds will appear in the Vancouver Olympics where users will fly through British Columbia. It's used in educational settings and in rehab medicine; soon to surface on massively multi-player games where it will capture the player's real motion and apply it to an avatar. Yikes! We are the future.

In 1983 with Francis MacDougall. Vincent John Vincent is the “ideas” part of the company while Francis MacDougall leads the development of technology. The company really came into it’s own around 1985 with the introduction of the Commodore Amiga. It was a brilliant machine, and was the first machine that could manipulate a color image from a video camera in real time.



I remember when this machine came out. It was amazing - an entire color television studio control room in a box. It put anything from Apple to shame.

At any rate, when they bought this machine Francis, who studied Psychology, played virtual instruments in a band that eventually toured the world.

I will have the pleasure of using this technology as a member of a three person group which will develop an application for the Ontario Premier’s Awards, a lavish ceremony where awards for the most innovative companies and people are announced. About 300 people will be in attendance, most of whom live their lives on the edge of current technologies. We want to show them a good time and we want to push the GestureTek system into new territory.

It is important to stress that the GestureTek system does not replace or replicate a computer mouse. That is, it does not work well with clicking and dragging. What it does do well is to recognize motion with a rough idea of where that motion is and some idea of where it is going. In short, the system excels at capturing broad movements.

Here’s, roughly, how it works. A video projector throws a computer generated image onto a screen – floor, ceiling, front or rear projection. A digital video camera takes in that same scene as an infra-red image. It helps to have infra-red lighting. When something blocks the infra-red light the system picks it up and the computer software places the motion on the screen.

GestureTek has developed some powerful, yet easy to use software called “Dazzler” that lets anyone project their own images and program what will happen when the system detects movement. Even better, the images and effects can be stacked so that there are many images and effects happening at once. While GestureTek’s pre-made effects work well, it is also possible to develop custom effects in Flash (cs2 only) and to layer these custom effects into the image along with GestureTek’s.

We are looking into the possibility of installing cs4. More to come on that.

All of this means that whatever we make needs to be somewhat simple. I’m sure we will have no trouble learning GestureTek’s technology. And I know that we’ll get great support from Chris Watts. Working in as2 might be a little freaky. It’s a new language and there isn’t really time to learn it. So, in the end, I think we will be working with some simple graphical routines (I found a nice one that draws trees). It helps that there are some nice tweens available in as2.

Our project will be like Chanel – simple and elegant.