noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Patrick Brewer) (03/18/90)
I remember seeing an article in some magazine about a year ago a more modern 3-D display allowing 360 degree views. I seem to remember it being developed for/by GM to see car designs before making a model. The display consisted of a hemisphere tilted at some angel and rotating at high speed. It was set in such a way that while it was spinning, the surface of the hemisphere passed through EVERY point in the volume of a larger hemisphere. A laser mounted above the the rotating device could illuminate each point needed to create a 3-D image. Being one laser was used the display was monochrome. But it is easy to see that by using 3 lasers you could get full color images. Infact, I believe they were working on that when the article was written. Price I believe was in 6 digits, but less than 1/4 million. The picture in the mag (talk about a 3-D display based on a 2-D picture) looked good. It was sort of like the "holo display" in "Return of the Jedi" when they were preparing for battle. I still want to know how Lucas Film made that image. **** SIDE NOTE ** Last night I went to see a demo of some of the graphics work being done here at NCSU. One of the grad students (I believe) showed some work he was doing in 3-D displays. He said his goal is to see just what shape a 3-D cursor should be for ease of use. He was just beginning to get the software working and had not yet begun to play with shapes. The shape he was using was a pyramid, and he said he could not stand it. The 3-D"is" was achieved by using the standard polorized glasses. The image was fuzzy because the screen would not fade fast enough for two images to be produced very well. With displays designed for this purpose I believe it could become a low cost option on workstations in the future. The hard ware was a sun with a "TACC" board and it was too slow to keep up with reasonably fast cursor movements. Imagine the virtual "office", instead of the "desktop." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The NOBLE One Patrick W. Brewer noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu An experienced politician is a dangerous thing!