MIT wants to bring glasses-free 3D technology to the living room

[Shawn Knight]

Many have dismissed 3D video playback as little more than a failed gimmick but not everyone is ready to give up on the format. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) last year developed a display that allows movie theater audiences to watch flicks in 3D without the use of clunky glasses.

Now, they’re working to deliver the technology directly to your living room.

The process, dubbed Home3D, works in real-time by converting traditional stereoscopic video to a high-quality, multi-view video that can be fed directly to an automultiscopic display. Such displays allow multiple users to view 3D content simultaneously without requiring cheesy 3D glasses.

Key to their algorithm is the fact that it extracts the best traits from two existing approaches – the Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches. As the researchers explain:

The solution preserves all the features of Eulerian methods, e.g., subpixel accuracy, high performance, robustness to ambiguous depth cases, and easy integration of inter-view aliasing while maintaining the advantages of Lagrangian approaches, e.g., robustness to large disparities and possibility of performing non-trivial disparity manipulations through both view extrapolation and interpolation.

Best yet, real-time conversion of 4K stereoscopic content is capable on “current” GPUs. This means that, in its current state, you’d need a PC or perhaps even a game console like a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One to process the conversion in real-time.

If the technology takes root, however, Home3D could eventually be run on chips embedded directly into televisions.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70104-mit-wants-bring-glasses-free-3d-technology-living.html

 

[willisgreg88]

I thought the 3D TV gimmick has gone already... I don't even watch 3D in theaters anymore

The thing is, there are people who gets sick watching 3D movies (I'm one of them). Wouldn't it be a better idea to make a display where users can choose to watch in 3D or not (say, putting on glasses, that's not a big deal) while sharing the same screen? That way people who wants 3D can watch in 3D, and those who don't can still enjoy the same movie together.

(Of course I'm no inventor. I appreciate MIT's effort in pushing technology forward. Just sharing my thoughts here)

 

[John Rupkalvis]

Clunky glasses? Cheesy glasses? Why the pejoratives? The glasses shown in the illustration are anaglyph glasses, not the kind used for watching 3D television, which have perfectly neutral filters, and very closely resemble sunglasses, which most people regard as cool.

Normal human vision is in stereoscopic 3D. Flat monoscopic 2D, where everything from the closest object to infinity is squashed down to a single flat plane, is a gross distortion. Correctly done, 3D by itself is incapable of making people sick. This is usually caused by motion sickness, which also results when watching 2D.

3D television and 3D cinema may be either stereoscopic (requiring viewing glasses) or autostereoscopic (which does not). There are several methods for effecting both. MIT's autostereoscopic system sounds very interesting, and may have some advantages worth exploring.

There was a time when television was all black & white in 2D. Now it is in color, but still mainly 2D. Just as color replaced black & white, normal 3D should also replace distorted 2D.

 

[ddferrari]

"...normal 3D should also replace distorted 2D."

I disagree. It would be a nice option for some, but let's keep "choices" on the table too.

 

[John Rupkalvis]

Choices? Would you prefer black & white standard definition television with monaural sound?

 

[ddferrari]

Choices? Would you prefer black & white standard definition television with monaural sound?

Yes John; because I stated that choices between 2D and 3D televisions should remain an option, that obviously means I "prefer black & white standard definition television with monaural sound".

I don't like my steaks cooked to well done; therefore I must prefer them raw.

 

[Steed]

Even if this tech is developed into new TVs which go on sale, there are a couple of factors likely to make it not get widely adopted:

1. Lack of Content. Even with all the 3D movies that have been made, there is just not enough content. VR adoption has the same problems.
2. Extremely high price for adopters, early or otherwise. Most people that have a working TV just dont have the money to go out and replace it unless it breaks. There literally is no need for getting a new one, esp if the price point is too high.
3. Poor support from manufactuerers will lead to an absolute mess, and eventual discontinuation. Look at Samsung and LG, the biggest TV manufacturers ...a soon as they dropped 3d in favour of HDR and better colour, all the other manufacturers did the same. It is literally impossible to buy a new 3d TV nowdays.