From: chawley@sundiver.esd.sgi.com (Chris Hawley)
Subject: Re: 3D real-time displays
Keywords: solid display
Reply-To: chawley@sundiver.esd.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc. / Doing Strange Stuff Division
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 23:32:30 GMT

    In article <BxKIpA.G7E@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, jem21176@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
(Jon E. Meyer) writes:

+ So who has the scoop on these?  There's one made by
+ Texas Instruments called Omniview.  All I've heard
+ about it is the name and the price  $60K around about.
+ Are there any really good ones out there?  Or are
+ most just the same old glasses-type.  I'm looking
+ for autostereo.  I'm tired of dealing with extras.
+ 
+ Any info would be great.  Thanks.

    I believe that you are referring to the same system which TI presented
in Dallas at SIGGRAPH '90... the prototype which I saw at that time allowed
you to view a vector-graphic solid image over most of a hemispherical solid
angle (360 x 180 degrees).  Put simply, it displayed vectors using a laser
and two-axis angular modulation (similar to what you might see at Laserium)
which were projected onto a high-reflectance rotating helical section.  As
the helical thingamabob rotated, it presented two "faces" which swept out
a solid volume; sending a sequence of 2-D images (with necessary skewing
and contortion for non-linear motion and curvature) during one half-rotation
of the helix gave the image actual depth, just as sending a sequence of
one-dimensional pixel rows and sweeping the row position perpendicular to
its axis will give you a two-dimensional image.  The rotating helical section
was enclosed under a plastic dome which served both to filter out ambient
light and to keep people's noses from being ground flush to their foreheads. ;^)

    No glasses, almost no constraints on viewing angle, and little or no
perceptible image flickering were the notably good features of this system.
Drawbacks: limited image complexity (I think they were running up to 1600
solid vectors), poor visibility under normal room lighting (the demo was
run inside a darkened display booth, with light-tight doors), vector display
format (no raster displays, at least not back then), and a fairly large
amount of moving mass required to obtain a good-sized viewing volume which
had to spin at ~1800 rpm. [1]

    Notwithstanding these things, I was impressed by the results and hoped
that TI would shake up the 3-D industry... but have heard almost nothing
since then.  Anyone out there have more recent information to share???


#include <std/disclaimer.h>
   /*  Employed by SGI in a non-speaking capacity.  All opinions are mine. */


[1. Despite an excellent job on the mechanical construction, you wouldn't
    want to have the display built onto your desk... sorta like bolting
    your desk to a well-bred washing machine during the spin cycle. ]

+ Jon Meyer
-- 
    Christopher J. Hawley / esper           /   chawley@sundiver.esd.sgi.com
    Silicon Graphics, Inc.   01L-945      PSD   phone:  415 / 390-1621  work
    Mountain View, CA   94039-7311  USA   /             415 / 965-0754  home
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       .... somewhere in the spectrum between Real Love and a free lunch.


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