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Sony 3D Cybershoot cameras to be released very quickly.

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Like the Fujifilm #D camera, ultimately they were mean to be viewed on HD monitor ( HDTV ) with 3D display. In fact locally the Sony showroom had been displaying one such 3D monitor ( with a pretty game like CG teaser running ). I've seen one of those Fujifilm 3D photo ( hard print ) and what Fujifilm called naked eye viewing 3D display ( digital phot frame or simply viewing it on the LCD on the camera ) I am not impressed at all, the 3D HDTV display ( require wearing a 3D Glass ) altogether a much better one though I must say its totsally different idea than a photo ( 2D display )

--
  • Franka -
 
KingDon said:
what exactly does a 3D camera do? Photos are printed on 2D paper or viewed on a 2D monitor. Can anyone post an example of what exactly is 3D?
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Well, TK already did that. As far as "what exactly is 3D", it's just taking pictures that correspond to your left eye view and right eye view (either a dual lens camera, or moving a camera to get both views) and then, somehow, "routing" those two images to the appropriate eyes.

The most common way involves printing two images, side by side on "2D paper" or a "2D monitor". This pair of images on the same paper or screen is referred to as a "stereo pair". You use any one of a number of gadgets commonly called "stereoscopes" to get the images to the proper eye.

Oliver Wendell Holmes created the first popular and widespread viewer of this type, way back in 1860, 150 years ago. Holmes used a 3x7 cardboard card to mount the pair. That put the centers of the two images 3.5 inches (89mm) apart, and the human eyes are only 2.4 inches (62mm) on average. Although we can turn our eyes inward (cross eyed) we can't turn them outward (walleye, like the fish, LOL). So, Holmes used "prism lenses" to angle your view outward, and allow you to focus on the card 8 inches away.



People still print in that format, and view using modern replicas of the Holmes viewer. You can buy these completely assembled from a number of vendors, or as kits, or as plans. The folks who sell plans also sell the hard to find stuff, like the prism lenses.

Since 4x6 is such a popular photographic print size, a modern stereo industry sprung up around that format. Loreo "mini" and "maxi" viewers are probably the most popular "modern" sterescopes. They are also based on prism lenses.

I go through a lot of maxi viewers: I typically include them with any 3D work I shoot (commercial, portrait, or TFP).The optical quality is pretty good (occasionally, they have a run with "wavy" lenses, if you get those, send them back for an exchange). It will hold about a dozen cards in the lid when you close the viewer, so you can have a little "slide show" with you.



http://www.berezin.com/3d/mini_viewer.htm

The drawback of prism lenses is that prisms not only change the direction of light, they also break it apart into colors, so prism lens stereoscopes produce a "rainbow smear" on images. Sir Charles Wheatstone created the "periscope" style 3D viewer (1840, 20 years before Holmes) that doesn't have the prism lens problem, but was considerably more expensive and harder to maintain. Even today, there are still companies building replicas of his viewer.

Here's a modern Wheatstone viewer. The periscopes give it an effective 5.5 inch (140mm) interoccular, so it looks inward on any stereo pair smaller than 11 inches wide. This is quite useful. I use one of these when I just want an "anywhere" grab it style viewer. I use it for
  • proofing 4x6 cards or Holms (3.5x7) cards as they come out the printer, before they get cut up for their particular viewers.
  • books that have 3D images, mostly compilations of older ones.
  • viewing side by side stereo pairs on small monitors. The Wheatstone is good for pairs up to about 14 inches wide, so you can view full width on laptops or small LCDs like a 17 inch.
Some people actually print two 4x11 pairs on an 8.5x11 (A4 is fine, too) sheet of paper, and view with a Wheatstone as their primary way of viewing 3D. Not my cup of tea.

For any of those purposes, they can't be beat, their optical quality is excellent. They are a "two trick pony", not the best on-screen viewer, not really compatible with any screen over about 17 inches, unless you have the stereo pair in like a 16 inch window. Not the best print viewer. But quite servicable for both. I keep on ein my laptop bag.

Warning: All modern Wheatstone viewers that I have seen have small lenses, set close together. They only work on relatively small faces. The ones I own are set up for a 56mm interoccular and are a touch uncomfortable with my 61mm. They won't work with anyone with a 64mm or larger interoccular.



http://www.berezin.com/3d/wheatstone.htm

(disclaimer, I have no commercial connection to Steve Berezin. He is one of several 3D equipment vendors. He's competent, courteous, and has never given me reason to switch vendors. I'm linking all these images of viewers from his site, so I thought it was only fair to also link the products).

wizfaq 3d

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
The dual periscope viewer is a good solution for viewing images side by side on 2D LCD monitors, too.

These have just hit the market, they're good quality optically, and can view images side by side on a pretty big LCD, or printed pretty big. They are built for large image viewing. The go for about $35, and are a great way to start. They have a tolerable 62mm interoccular (eye spacing) and will work well with large or small faces. If you're going to use them for editing, you'll want both hands free, so you'll either have to build a stand or buy a more elaborate viewer that comes with a stand.



http://www.berezin.com/3d/3d_scope.htm

Now, here's some of the other "toys" I use.

For the ones I view on screen, I either use a home made viewer that has two really large first surface mirrors and two smaller ones can view a pair of 30 inch LCD monitors (it's very comfortable, the viewing port is 4x10 inches, and can be about 6 inches from your face). It looks a lot like the "HyperView", but bigger.





http://www.berezin.com/3d/Hyperview.htm

Or I use a commercial "Screen Scope"



http://www.berezin.com/3d/screenscope.htm

I didn't like any of the versions with stands (monitor, laptop, or LCD) and they warn that the LCD stand can't get var back enough for monitors larger than so I ordered the hand held version and built a swing arm of my own from a scrap "luxo" style desk lamp. It's nice, because it springs gently toward you, so you can rest your face against it and if you lean forward or move a bit side to side, it will follow you. The ScreenScope has good interoccular spacing, and is compatible with most faces.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Back in the days of film, it was common to shoot your stereo pairs with a dual lens camera on slide film (the "Realist" was the most popular of these. Kodak also made a popular stereo camera).

The slides where mounted side by side in a dual window cardboard slide holder, and viewed with a "binocular viewer". Here's the popular "lifelike" viewer.



There are several people currently building digital equivalents of the binocular viewer. "3D in life" (also sold under the "Take 'n Vu" label) is a binocular format dual digital camera and viewer. Totally retro, with the lovely black, curved case reminiscent of a bakelite 3D product from the 1950s.



Another way of dealing with 3D images printed on 2D paper or displayed on 2D screens is the "anaglyph". The left eye image is printed or displayed in red, the right eye in cyan (blue + green), so when you wear red/cyan glasses, the brain can separate both the 3D and the color.

Remember these glasses?



I own a more comfortable, stylish pair.



--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
And not all paper or LCDs are 2D. There is a 3D paper printing technology, called the "lenticular print", that has been in use for about 70 years. The left eye and right eye images are "sliced" into vertical stripes and interleaved. Placed behind a "lenticular sheet", cylindrical lenses (inexpensively molded in the sheet) route the proper slices to each eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing

You see these on everything from classic "Cracker Jack" prizes to DVD covers, wall art, and even poster size. Fuji has started up a lenticular printing service for images from their 3D cameras. They're not the first, small companies like Nimslo, Nashika, i3D, Snap 3D have tried this before, in the film days, with everything from nice 4 lens lenticular cameras like the Nimslo, to 3 lens cardboard disposables from Snap.

This isn't limited to print. The same technology can be applied to LCDs.
  • Fuji and 3DinLife have 7 or 8 inch LCD picture frames using "autostereo" LCDs that work this way.
  • 3M has a new technology called "Conoscopy" that doubles the resolution of the autostereo display.
  • Sharp has used autostereo displays in various models of their Actius laptop line since 2004.
  • Philips makes a 42 inch autostereo LCD TV
An LCD is already a polarized light device, so it's not hard to alter the LCD so that every other line has a different polarization. This can either be done with linear or circular polarizers. You have to wear a simple pair of passive LCD glasses to view this kind of display, just like seeing Avatar in a Real D or IMAX theater. You lose half the effective display resolution, because half the pixels are routed to one eye, half to the other.



This tech has been on the market in LCD monitors for some years now.
  • Hyundai and Zalman make inexpensive 22 or 24 inch desktop monitors using it.
  • Acer use it in their new 5738DZG laptop
  • CAD quality systems using two LCDs and a polarizing combiner are available from Planar and Red Rover. This gets past the resolution problem, at the cost of having two monitors and a combiner.
  • It's also common for projected 3D for home and business use, either with dual projectors or with a single projector and rotating polarizer. Just smaller versions of what the theaters currently use.
Other ways of displaying 3D on an LCD include having an LCD that can display 120 images/second, displaying the left and right images alternately. You have to wear "shutter glasses" that keep up with the display, alternately blocking the proper eye. You keep the full resolution, but the glasses are heavier than those used for passive systems, and do not have as large a field of view. This is a "classic" technology, in use with CRTs for over 20 years, and migrating to LCD, DLP, plasma, etc. It appears to be the leading tech for home presentation of 3D movies.
  • Samsung and ViewSonic make 120Hz monitors in 22 and 24 inch, targeting primarily the gamer markets.
  • Asus just launched two laptops with this tech, G51J3D and G72GX/
  • Samsung has been making DLP widescreen TVs with it for years, and is launching LCD TV.
To summarize: there many common ways to view 3D.
  • 3 common side by side card formats
  • side by side and over/under monitor viewers
  • lenticular prints
  • anaglyph prints, stills, and movies
  • autostereo LCD
  • 120Hz shutter glass LCD, DLP, plasma, or CRT
  • passive polarized LCD in linear or circular polarized
OK, that's it, I'm done now.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
That was a very good state-of-the-art Lecture, with some meaningful History thrown in for better comprehension!
Thank you very much, Joseph!
BTW: I never though that this subject was interesting until today...
--
Antonio

http://ferrer.smugmug.com/
 
Pedagydusz said:
That was a very good state-of-the-art Lecture, with some meaningful History thrown in for better comprehension!
Thank you very much, Joseph!
Click to expand...
You're welcome, Antonio.

Thank you for the compliments.
Pedagydusz said:
BTW: I never though that this subject was interesting until today...
Click to expand...
I've been in love with it for ages...

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
3D is not new I have a 3D postcard back from the early 70's, we have seen star war on the 80's , 3D it really like fashion, it may suddenly famous for a few years and then it will disappeared and no one wants to talk about it.

personally I don't like these 3D stuff, you always need to wear those cheap plastic glasses which always make the images blur and fuzzy sometimes headache.

but from a hardware factory point of view, this maybe the golden time to dig mountain of gold, because they can sell large number of 3D camera, 3D TV, 3D photo frame, 3D glasses, 3D projector, just anything you can think of.
 
john said:
3D is not new I have a 3D postcard back from the early 70's, we have seen star war on the 80's , 3D it really like fashion, it may suddenly famous for a few years and then it will disappeared and no one wants to talk about it.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's very not new.

3D photographs were taken of the U.S. Civil War.

3D Photography started fairly soon after 2D photography. And that's been a while.
 
3D (properly called STEREO) is certainly not new. It actually predates photography!

A not of good info is available in prior posts. Did you know that with some eye training, it's possible to view either parallel or cross-viewed formats UNAIDED!

There are many formats for viewing; cross, parallel, alaglyph (I hate anaglyph), over-under, polarized, to name many.

See hte Flckr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/stereo/

for examples of all types.

It's hard to beat stereophotography for hte ultimate in realism!

Wayne
 
ya thanks a lot for that. I've been interested in 3D photography for many years, but I've had a bit of a renewal lately ever since Hollywood got in on the action. Well, I guess I took my first handheld stereo pair about two summers ago, with only so-so success. Recently, I took one by accident, having unknowingly shifted slightly between two shots at about the same settings, and it turned out pretty well. Since then I've been getting really into it.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the art of simply aiming your eyes such that each one looks at its own image, magic eye style. I usually cross my eyes, rather than go parallel, that way there isn't really a limit as to how big and far apart the two photos can be. You just have to make sure to reverse the images, the one taken to the right should be on the left side, or else your depth perception gets a little confused. The same happens if you put the glasses on upside down during Avatar, very trippy!



 
KingDon said:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quesabesde.com%2Fnoticias%2Fsony-confirma-tecnologia-3d-camaras-fotograficas-corto-plazo%2C1_6101&sl=auto&tl=en

what exactly does a 3D camera do? Photos are printed on 2D paper or viewed on a 2D monitor. Can anyone post an example of what exactly is 3D?
Click to expand...
A friend of mine got the Fujifilm 3D and besides that fact that it's huge, it's a decent 3D camera. You don't even need to wear glasses to view the 3D affect. I thinks it has something to do with the refresh rate alternating between images. I liked it for a short while before I started getting eye strain from looking constantly at the screen. I guess my eyes and brain didn't take a liking to the "flickering" 3D affect... have to say that the "flickering" mentioned is not obvious flickering as it happens very quickly... good idea to get a demo before buying... I personally won't buy the Sony one if it was like the Fujifilm as I would not be able to use it for too long...

There was a thread with a video of the Fujifilm 3D along with the flickering mentioned here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1012&message=33422799

Regards,
Rachis
---------------
I am an Amateur / Enthusiast / Hobbyist / etc… not a Pro = I can be wrong

Cautions:
I may when the mood suits me become a pixel peeper!
 
Joe, you prompted me to look out a viewer that I have had for many years. I think my great uncle may have had it from new. There are a number of sets of cards with it. I must see if I can take some images and print them the right size to go in the viewer.

The viewer and collections of real photographs from around 1930



The back of one of the cards. 5/- for the viewer was quite a lot in 1930



--
Brian
Fine Art Print sales of the Isle of Skye at:
http://www.eyeofskye.co.uk/
 
Here's a new viewer's experience: mine. I'd seen this camera (Fuji 3D 3W) locally and tried a couple out in the stores and even though the photos were in-store and full of neon store stuff, I was intrigued. So I bought the Fuji 3D 3W on Ebay, and have been loving it. The screen is 2D, yet it shows amazing, true 3D images, WITHOUT glasses. The screen is relatively big--a full 3-1/2", and the results in the real world are wonderful. I just stare at the pictures I've taken and shake my head--and so do the people I've shown the pix to. But what really astounds me are the 3D movies. The movies are extraordinary on the bright screen, even better than the pictures, in my opinion. What I do note is that the camera is much more effective when the things or people being photographed are close by. If you take a picture at infinity, you won't see much of any 3D effect, unless there's a tree or something else that is closer to you. That gives the 3D effect. The results are clear and the visuals are great. I didn't know that I wanted this camera--not until I got it. Now I can't take my eyes off it!
 
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