3D TV, shouldn't it be easy?

[Ianfitz]

Just thinking about this, but shouldn't 3D TVs be a lot easier to use? I'm sure you guys have seen stereoscopic pairs (eg http://bit.ly/wPQgyt ), so I was wondering if the guys over at 3D tv manufacturers could just separate images enough so that the eyes, with enough crossing, could merge them to 3D? I know that this would effectively double the horizontal size of the screen (unless someone does magic and crosses eyes vertically), but would this not be practical on smaller TV/monitors? I've taken some regular photos and done some clones with them, and I've seen some depth in them, albeit not as great as actual 3D, but it could convert regular TV into 3D without special equipment. (and yes I know that the average view distance would be larger to avoid eye strain, but this is for small TVs where it isn't as pronounced, like I said earlier)
Or am I missing something crucial here, cause easy stuff like this doesn't seem to work much.
Knowing me, I'm missing something very crucial I just can't seem to find.

[Qaanol]

Most people are terrible at Magic Eye. Most people would need to have stereoscopic viewer goggles, that would be even dorkier than 3D glasses. The concept is certainly solid, and I actually take a lot of pictures in stereoscopic 3D, both cross-eyed and wide-eyed versions (the difference being which side has the Left image). The problem is, as usual, of the soft fleshy variety.

[Carnildo]

Just thinking about this, but shouldn't 3D TVs be a lot easier to use? I'm sure you guys have seen stereoscopic pairs (eg http://bit.ly/wPQgyt ), so I was wondering if the guys over at 3D tv manufacturers could just separate images enough so that the eyes, with enough crossing, could merge them to 3D?

Most people find maintaining crossed eyes for more than a few seconds to be extremely fatiguing, and crosseye stereoscopy suffers from the same limitation that almost all other 3D viewing techniques do: the viewer's eyes needs to be horizontal.

[Soralin]

There has been something similar to this done, see http://www.anandtech.com/show/5256/view ... approach/5

Basically, every other line on the screen has a different polarizing filter over it, and you have a pair of glasses with polarizing filters that block half the image to each eye, so each eye sees a slightly different image. It's basically what you describe, but with the separate images mixed together line by line, and using polarizing filters rather than requiring crossing or defocusing your eyes. The main disadvantage is the one you describe, that it has to be twice as big in the direction that this is being done in, or in the case of the monitor in the link, that it effectively has half the normal resolution on one of it's dimensions.

[AvatarIII]

there are a lot of videos on youtube that are 3D with the eye-crossing method, I like to watch them, but I am unable to cross my eyes, I have to use goggle type things I got with a stereoscopy kit I had when I was a kid. but even so you have to have your head at a very specific place.

the closest thing I can think of to what you are describing, is simply a 3D headset, where each eye has it's own small but high res screen, a company called Vuzix have been doing them for a very long time, and Sony are making one too.
http://www.mobilemag.com/2011/01/09/son ... xperience/

[WarDaft]

It is easy, if the TV is actually a projector. Then a typical pair of polarized glasses as you'd get from a movie suffices.

The problem with stenographic pairs, is that any device for aid only works for one person and in one place.

Also, you're not really crossing your eyes unless its really close. It's just like focusing on something at half the typical distance. If you can read a book, then it shouldn't bother you much.

[Mr_Rose]

I'm waiting for those guys working on free-space projection of 3D objects to get up to full HD and 50FPS before I start getting too invested in 3D display tech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuK5Dlg8xI

In the mean time I'm rather glad that simultaneous display of circular-polarised images for use with passive (ie lightweight, battery-less, flicker-free) glasses is becoming available to LCD TVs in the consumer sector.

[WarDaft]

I'm waiting for those guys working on free-space projection of 3D objects to get up to full HD and 50FPS before I start getting too invested in 3D display tech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuK5Dlg8xI

In the mean time I'm rather glad that simultaneous display of circular-polarised images for use with passive (ie lightweight, battery-less, flicker-free) glasses is becoming available to LCD TVs in the consumer sector.

Aren't those extraordinarily loud? And you can't have infinite depth either, many scenes in movies and shows wouldn't fit inside a monitor properly.

[Zamfir]

And you can't have infinite depth either, many scenes in movies and shows wouldn't fit inside a monitor properly.

Yeah, that's how I knew Star Wars wasn't real. They say the Death Star is a large as a moon, but it fitted easily inside my 20-inch TV. Now I have a flatscreen that's bigger, but it is also only a few inches thick. And it still fits. I think it's just a painting, and the actors walk in front of it.

[Steax]

If you can read a book, then it shouldn't bother you much.

Except most people's eyes aren't used to trying to view something while focusing their eyes on something else at the same time. I know some people who can't seem to voluntarily control their eye focus at all.

[Talith]

I say we just mount a few million low powered lasers and an eye tracking camera in to the wall and then aim each laser accurately enough on to your pupil to produce the required image. What could go wrong?

[PM 2Ring]

I make lots of stereo pairs, mostly using POV-Ray (eg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/PM2Ring/OasisF5.jpg), although I occasionally do 3D vector-based images directly in PostScript. I used to be able to view stereo pairs in cross-eyed or wide-eyed mode with equal ease, but these days I find it's not so easy to do wide-eyed viewing of full-screen images. Free viewing of stereo pairs isn't that hard to learn for most people, but it does need to be learned, and if you don't do it properly it's easy to get eyestrain with prolonged viewing, so it's not really a suitable mode for popular 3D TV.

It's not too difficult to build a simple stereoscope using 4 mirrors, eg http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/stscp/stscp.htm#6. Actually, you can make a very primitive stereoscope using one mirror, although that method requires that one of the images is mirror-reversed and has its brightness enhanced (since the mirror attenuates the brightness slightly). But as mentioned earlier in the thread, stereoscope-based methods are bulky and not much good if multiple people are trying to watch the same screen.

FWIW, I have an ancient pair of "X Specs" LCD shutter goggles, which I used extensively on the Amiga. I guess I should build a PC interface for them...

[Gagundathar The Inexplicable]

The only way I can imagine this actually being useful is to project the movie from below and have the images be truly holographic.
Imagine the way that the Emperor projected his image to Vader in SW-3.
Now, imagine it wasn't really bad (as it was in the movie).

You are watching American Baseball.
You could walk around your room and see different aspects from that of others in the room.
Just like being in a stadium.
A runner is stealing home plate.
The play is close.
You are on a different parallax than your friend, and you see something he can't.

"Hey, Barnes, look you can SEE he was out, dangnabbit!"
And your friend walks around, and sees the replay from your perspective, and there you go, he says "that runner was out."

Until then, it is a stunt.

YMMV.

Maybe you could make the projector rotate so you don't have to get up and move around.
After all, we are just sitting down and watching a game.

[radams]

The Nintendo 3DS proves it's possible to have a 3D image without glasses or crossing your eyes. The disadvantages I can see are: first, it only works from a limited range of angles, which would make it harder for a family to all watch TV together. Second, a lot of people report headaches or motion sickness after using the 3DS for some time.

[tyboy]

The motion sickness/headache thing just seems to be a built in feature of 3D TV. As far as I know every technique ever has that problem. People get motion sick or headaches because they're sitting on the couch looking at the TV and things look 3D, which some people's brains just can't handle quite right.

The glasses would have to get pretty insanely heavy, uncomfortable and dorky before I'd start preferring to spend the movie making sure my eyes are the right amount out of focus to see 3D.