3DIcon press release on new system

3DIcon Achieves Historic Breakthrough in 3D Imaging

I have no comment to make here, I just wanted to post the link for later use.

Still waiting on the book

A week ago Amazon sent me an E-mail about the Volumetric display book I ordered (Volumetric Three-Dimensional Display Systems - see my previous post for more info). What was it about? Another delay! I wouldn't get my book until June! At this point I decided to find alternative means to get the book. It turns out that there are a lot of places that sell the book used. So I ordered the book used. The cost? Less than $30! W00t! They plan to ship the book by May 1 and I should get it within two weeks! Yippee! Leason learned. Next time I need a textbook I'll look at the used market first.

Needless to say I canceled my outstanding Amazon order.

Volumetric Display Research Paper

Last week I completed a paper on Volumetric displays for my PC hardware and software administration class at TVI. The assignment was to research something about PCs and write an 8 to 9 page paper on it. The general expectation from the instructor was that the student would write about wireless networking, the PCI-Express bus, parallel processing and other topics appropos to PC hardware and sotware. My topic was a little bit out there and so I don't know how good of a grade I'll get for my paper. I have no regrets, however, as it offered me the opportunity to spend time researching and learning more about volumetric displays.

There was one big disappointment resulting from this paper. Back in February I discovered a great book I could use for my research: Volumetric Three-Dimensional Display Systems by Barry G. Blundell and Adam J. Schwarz. It's a textbook and it covers all the fundamentals of volumetric displays. It was the perfect book for my paper and so I decided to purchase it from Amazon. It cost over $130 but I figured it would be worth it not only for my paper but also for my own purposes. When I ordered the book, Amazon had the delivery date set for late March. It'll come late into my research work for the paper but it would still be useful. In the meantime I planned to get the rest of my research information from Google searchs and various web sites. Then the bad news came in early March: Amazon would not be able to deliver the book until April 20th at the earliest. ARRRRGH! The bastards! The paper was due April 4th! Now I had to do ALL of my research from the web.

Despite this disappointment, I was still able to get the information I needed for the paper. One thing about web reasearch is that is much more difficult than gleaning data from a book. First of all there is no definitive source for volumetric displays and I had to rely on a large variety of sources to get my information. Secondly, most web sites about volumetric displays tend to be fragmentary - they're only concerned with discussing a small aspect of a particular display, product or line of research. Worst of all, most of the sites assume that you are already knowledgeable in the area of volumetric displays or 3-D graphics and they tend to be infested with jargon, mathematics and incomprehensible prose. There appears to be no web site for volumetric n00Bs and laymen interested in the subject.

No doubt, as I coninue my academic career, I'll get better at gathering research information from the web. This apparent lack of a beginners guide for volumetric displays has enbolded me to put more effort in posting my findings on this blog. As I learn more, updating this blog will help me understand the topic better since it will force me to write down what I learn in my own words. Perhaps it will help anyone reading this blog. I can only hope.

Glossary

There are a number of specialized terms in the Volumetric display industry and so I figure I will need a glossary to help me out. This entry will serve as that Glossary. I'll update it whenever I come across a new word.

• Direct Volume Display Devices (DVDDs) - Essentially, another name for a Volumetric Display: a graphical display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects. (from Wikipedia.)
  
• Emissive Volume Displays - A Volumetric Display that works by suspending active elements in a 3-D volume space. Normally in the "off" state, these elements are either dark or transparent and become opaque or luminous when put into the "on" state. These elements could be LCD panels as implemented by Lightspace technologies or a florescent agent lit up by fiber optics like the prototype built at the Dallas campus of the University of Texas.
  
• Laser Plasma Displays - A relatevely new type of Volumetric Display that works by focusing a pulsed infrared laser at a point in the air to generate a small glowing ball of plasma. The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) recently reported success with their version of the system. As the laser is able to produce plasma gas out of regular air, safety concerns would be paramount since the laser could severely burn your hand if you passed it through the display volume.
• Multiplaner Display Systems - Essentially, another name for a Volumetric Display: a graphical display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects. (from Wikipedia.)
• Swept-Volume Displays - The most popular type of Volumetric Display which works by sweeping the volume with a 2-D surface while a laser, a series of LEDs, a projection CRT or other device displays an image on the surface. Most swept plane displays are implemented by rotating a flat translucent surface like that demonstrated by the Holoverse Group. Less popular swept plane displays employ complex shapes like the helical assembly described by Laserfx.com. Swept plane displays require elaborate moving parts and therefore are susceptible to vibration, wobbling and other mechanical flaws.
  
• Varifocal Mirror Displays -A Volumetric Display that shows 3-D images by using a variable focus mirror to focus 2-D images at different depth planes. Normally, the mirror is vibrated rapidly in order to swept its focus across the volume. However, to show a display with high quality, the mirror must be capable of vibrating at very high frequencies. Varifocal mirror displays are one of the oldest types of volumetric displays and they were built as early as the 1960s. One example of the varifocal mirror display is the SpaceGraph system built by BBN in Cambridge, MA.
• Volumetric Display -A volumetric display device is a graphical display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects (perspective, shading, etc.) (from Wikipedia.) What distinguishes volumeric displays from other types of 3-D displays (such as stereoscopic or holographic displays) is that they create real 3-D images that appear to float in midair, can be viewed from a wide variety of angles and does not require the use of special glasses (like most stereoscopic dislays). Holographic displays work by projecting interference patterns on the retina of the eye: the viewer is seeing a virtual image of an object instead of a real image. Volumeric displays also do not induce the eystrain many different types of stereoscopic displays generate.
  
• voxel - (VOlume piXEL) A three-dimensional pixel. In other words, the smallest element displayed in a three -dimensional image.
• Voxel Density - I'm not quite sure what this is yet. I believe it is the 3-D equivalent to pixel density. In other words, the grayscale intensity of a voxel expressed as a number in the range 0..1. (This term needs more research)
  
• Voxel Intensity - The relative brightness of a Voxel. There is a direct, linear relationship between voxel intensity and opacity. In other words, by default, the higher a voxel's intensity value, the more opaque (less transparent) that voxel is when rendered. (From the University of Iowa's Advanced Technologies website.) (Definition link)
• Voxelization - the process of adding depth to an image using a set of cross-sectional images known as a volumetric dataset. (From Webopedia)
  
• Voxel Opacity - A measure of the opacity of a voxel. Any voxel has the capability of obscuring the view of any other voxel. To get around this, voxels are given an opacity value through an opacity transformation function. There is a direct, linear relationship between voxel intensity and opacity. In other words, by default, the higher a voxel's intensity value, the more opaque (less transparent) that voxel is when rendered. (From the University of Iowa's Advanced Technologies website.) (Definition link)
  
• Voxel Processing - A means of visualizing 3-dimensional shapes and structures implied by a series of cross-sectional images. (From the University of Iowa's Advanced Technologies website.) (Definition link).
  

(Updated 4/7/06)

New Beginning

When I first created this Blog in February of 2005 I had no real goal in mind. As a result this Blog was nothing more than a collection of random posts. Since then I've created a couple more blogs and my blog at LiveJournal has become my default location for random and personal posts. That made this blog redundant and mostly useless especially since I found friends at LiveJournal and I didn't (and still don't) have any friends on Blogspot. So I had the choice of either deleting this blog or changing it to something else. I've decided to do the latter.

The new mission of this blog is to serve as a repository for information, notes and research on volumetric displays. Since high school (a very long time ago), I've been interested in using lasers to display real 3D images (as opposed to virtual 3D images that holograms and stereograms produce). Since then I've strayed from that path (I got a BS in Computer Engineering and became an applications programmer and, later, a system manager) and I would like to return to vo0lumetric displays to see what's out there and also find out how I can contribute to the industry.

I'm thinking of going back to college to pursue this topic academically. Currently I am attending a community college to obtain MCSE certification (with the secondary goal of relearning how to become a good student). Once that's complete I hope to go back to my old university and get into a program related to the volumetric display industry. I could start as early as January of 2007, depending on finances and my job situation.

I don't have any strategy on how to post the information so it may appear random for a while. Eventually I may reorginize the posts and put them in some kind of order that makes sense. So don't expect anything in this blog to stay the same - I've already deleted all the entries here and I might do the same in the future.

Stay tuned...