A Step Towards the Classification of 3-D Displays

A recent article in a prestigious journal has inspired this blog. In it was included a foldout chart classifying stereoscopic moving image systems. The chart was obscure and confusing. I prefer to have people understand stereoscopic imaging, and the chart is of no help. It isn’t as if the classification of stereoscopic imaging systems is at the same level of complexity as that of the Periodic Table. But classifying a technology family, a system created by the human mind, can also be a challenging.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong: Myths of Stereoscopic Filmmaking

Every field has its mythology. Myths can build a collective spirit, and help people reach for a goal. But sometimes myths are destructive because they are based on fiction and can prevent people from making properly informed decisions. This is especially true in a nascent field like stereoscopic filmmaking. Although stereoscopic filmmaking has been around for a long time, people haven’t had a chance to practice their skills, so from a craft point of view, it’s still in a relatively early stage. Until lately there has been a lack of proper technology so that theatrical filmmakers could learn from experience. You learn from experience, which often means your mistakes. Although the maxim is learning from mistakes, you also learn from what you do right and what works. Who’s to know which is more important–doing it right or doing it wrong?  Obviously, nobody wants to do it wrong, so people tend to get conservative and cautious, especially in an undeveloped field like stereoscopic filmmaking.

And the Award goes to…

The Society for Information Display (SID), the leading global organization dedicated to the advancement of electronic-display technology, today announced the winners of its 13th annual Display of the Year Awards. This year’s honorees represent exciting advances in providing consumers with a superior viewing experience, whether handheld, in the home, or on the big screen. RealD was honored with the Society’s 2008 Silver Award for Display Application of the Year.

The Dogs of Hiroshima

The dogs of Hiroshima
barked until the very end.
One slept on the ground, in the shade.
Two pups played and chewed on each other.
One dog came when it was called.
Another sat by the side of her master.

Halloween 1970

This story appeared in a collection of stories edited by Paul Krassner, “Pot Stories for the Soul.” The collection provides a rich view of the 60’s counter-culture, of which I was a part.

Halloween 1970

By Lenny Lipton

Behind me lay the Sacramento Valley, the A & W Root Beer drive-in in Redding, a hash joint in Weed and the ever-looming Mount Shasta, the Siskiyou, Ashland and the long glide downward into Oregon. Before me, across the road, that Halloween moonlit night, I heard the sounds a rock band coming from the big old house with the Jeffersonian columns. The house sat on a knob of land formed by a bend in the Mohawk River, just a few miles outside of the town of Marcola. They said it had been used in the Jimmy Stewart movie Shenandoah, and true or not, the story lent an air of glamour to the downtrodden manor.

How Things Get Invented

The history of motion pictures is an interesting one, and I am learning more about it in the context of my present work inventing stereoscopic motion picture systems, and in connection with the work I am doing with studios and filmmakers. I am taking working with filmmakers seriously because the quality of the Real D system is judged by the content projected on our screens. I was recently appointed as the co-chair (Peter Andersen is the other co-chair) of the sub-committee of the ASC Technology Committee tasked to help figure out workflow production pipeline and stereoscopic cinematographic issues. These subjects are tentative and need to be developed and we’re all learning together.

What to do About the Big Screen

It’s an unintended consequence of success: disruption. Real D has demonstrated and is introducing a new version of the ZScreen modulator that is twice as bright as the original product that made possible the current stereoscopic electronic cinema. The ZScreen is an electro-optical modulator that can switch the characteristics of polarized light at video field rate. When used in combination with a Texas Instruments equipped DMD light engine, the result is 144 fields per second projected at the screen–half left-handed and half right-handed circularly polarized. This high field rate is required for eliminating motion and stereoscopic judder.

Divergence and Projector Alignment

Historically, there have been different ways to set up stereoscopic projection as can be traced in the literature. Contemplated was dual projection using anaglyphs, or the polarized method for image selection. In one case, the projectors maintain a constant distance apart with the lens axes parallel. In the second case, the lens axes converge at the plane of the screen. In the first method there is no constancy with regard to placement of objects at the plane of the screen and that will change with the size of the screen, but background points can be set to remain at a fixed value no matter what size screen is used. The second method is the one we use when in fact the lens axes are coincidental.

Autostereoscopic Anaglyph

Inventors have been obsessed, and rightfully so, with creating stereoscopic displays that do not require eyewear, or what in the jargon of the field are called “individual selection devices.” I have put some considerable effort into devising variations of this. To avoid humiliation I’m not going to tell you about the wackiest thing I worked on. However, I am going to tell you about the next-wackiest thing and a few that are more sensible.

The Projection Dilemma

I will now take you, reader, on a journey involving both technology and aesthetics intermingled with projection practices that are a century old and how the stereoscopic electronic cinema evolution impacts this. Stick with me and it hopefully will all make sense by the last sentence. Along the way I’ll inform you about some engineering choices, and how this has impacted not only digital cinema projection, but stereoscopic projection.