3D Display

[Tacopowell]

In ENT, Cold Front, the Time traveller brings back a pod that projects a 3D display,

This technology is not far from been available today,
in 2001 when this episode was made, surely it wouldn't have been to far fetched to imagine this technology?
So why was Archer so amazed?

 

[F. King Daniel]

It was what he was showing him that was amazing. Look at all the timelines they're monitoring! The different parts of history (and alternate histories, no doubt) being explored. Watching te Great Pyramid being built! The sheer amazing scope of what is possible in Daniels' era.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've actually been wondering about the validity of 3D displays aboard a starship. Sure, they're great in a stable home or office setting, but in a combat situation where the ship is violently tossed about and more delicate systems tend to go offline, it might be better to have something more rugged like standard consoles for control interfaces, with 3D reserved for less vital stuff like conference meeting presentations (I remember TNG used a 3D display in "The Last Outpost").

 

[Timo]

Basically, 3D allows you to see more sides to the issue, or immerses you in the situation.

But you can achieve the former simply by commanding the image to rotate, regardless of whether it exists in a volume of space, on a flat display panel, on a curved helmet visor, etc. And the latter isn't all that useful for us poor humans who only have two eyes, both pointing forward - it does much more for situational awareness if you take the observer out of immersion, and instead concentrate all the information conveniently in front of him.

So "freestanding", "holographic" views aren't really all that advantageous. Sure, they may be pretty, but they may well be far less informative than non-freestanding three-dimensional views. Say, you have a conference at Observation Lounge and want your officers to view the schematic of the enemy fortress from all sides to find optimal ways in. If you have one beautifully freestanding holo-fortress there, rotating above the conference table, it's user-hostile: if LaForge is looking at the front gate, Worf must settle for looking at the rear ramparts, and if they rotate it, one wins but the other loses. Much better to have separate images for each officer - and those don't benefit at all from being freestanding.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gaith]

In ENT, Cold Front, the Time traveller brings back a pod that projects a 3D display,

This technology is not far from been available today

[citation needed]

 

[BillJ]

"Hey, I can see the Abramverse from here!"

 

[EnsignRedshirt]

I've actually been wondering about the validity of 3D displays aboard a starship. Sure, they're great in a stable home or office setting, but in a combat situation where the ship is violently tossed about and more delicate systems tend to go offline, it might be better to have something more rugged like standard consoles for control interfaces, with 3D reserved for less vital stuff like conference meeting presentations (I remember TNG used a 3D display in "The Last Outpost").

I loved that display in "The Last Outpost". I wish they had utilized it fairly frequently.

 

[Redfern]

Did they have the wall mounted display devices yet when "The Last OutPost" was recorded? I wonder if that holo-"plate" was intended to be the primary display, but since it required opticals, the production dumped the concept for the more pedestrian backlit graphic.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Mytran]

No, that screen didn't turn up until TNG got it's own dedicated Observation Lounge set in season 2. In season 1 they simply redressed Sickbay.

 

[bryce]

Wasn't there that episode of DS9 where a future version of Bashir and...somebody else...was on the Defiant and said somethignabout how they couldn't believe how they got by with these old 2-dimensional displays...???

 

[Third Nacelle]

Wasn't there that episode of DS9 where a future version of Bashir and...somebody else...was on the Defiant and said somethignabout how they couldn't believe how they got by with these old 2-dimensional displays...???

That was The Visitor, and I think they were talking about 3-D control panels.

Aside from navigation, I really can't think of many instances where a 3D display would provide more functionality than a 2D display. Sure it looks cool to us, but I'd imagine people in the 24th century aren't impressed with stuff like that. That's why LCARS is so simple.

 

[Tiberius]

The thing about 3D displays is that they need something to project the image ONTO. Sure, we have 3D cinemas and televisions and all that, but in all of those we are dealing with a 3D image being shown on a 2D surface.

To project a 3D image into thin air is beyond any technology we have today.

 

[Timo]

Not really... "Thin air" can count for the required "something" if it's, say, moist enough. 2D displays using walls of mist as the projection surface are relatively commonplace already; 3D could theoretically be implemented as well.

But today's technology can easily produce "freestanding" imagery in empty space by a far simpler means. Just project it directly at the eyes of the audience, by using software that tracks the eyes of each individual spectator and shines the required images directly onto those, customized for each, well, customer.

3D vision is an illusion in any case (even when we're viewing actual physical objects), and the illusion is created by carefully manipulating the imagery falling on our eyes. Doing it eye by eye is merely a minor complication today's computers can easily manage, and probably a lesser complication than those involved in more "conventional" 3D projection techniques.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Third Nacelle]

I would think that it's much more practical and plausible to simply project a 3D display onto one's retina than into thin air.

Or better yet, wire the images straight into the optic nerve.

 

[Tiberius]

Not really... "Thin air" can count for the required "something" if it's, say, moist enough. 2D displays using walls of mist as the projection surface are relatively commonplace already; 3D could theoretically be implemented as well.

How would this work?

For it to be used as a regular 2D display, I could see it. You just need a sheet of mist to project your image onto. But a 3D display would require a VOLUME of mist. So if you have the projector at the front (like a cinema projector), then it will have to project a beam of light through the front part of the image in order to show something at the back. How could this work without creating a visible effect in the mist that the beam travels through?

In any case, I don't think Daniels' gizmo shot a cloud of mist into the room first.

But today's technology can easily produce "freestanding" imagery in empty space by a far simpler means. Just project it directly at the eyes of the audience, by using software that tracks the eyes of each individual spectator and shines the required images directly onto those, customized for each, well, customer.

3D vision is an illusion in any case (even when we're viewing actual physical objects), and the illusion is created by carefully manipulating the imagery falling on our eyes. Doing it eye by eye is merely a minor complication today's computers can easily manage, and probably a lesser complication than those involved in more "conventional" 3D projection techniques.

Timo Saloniemi

Got any more about this? It seems interesting.

 

[Manticore]

The thing about 3D displays is that they need something to project the image ONTO. Sure, we have 3D cinemas and televisions and all that, but in all of those we are dealing with a 3D image being shown on a 2D surface.

To project a 3D image into thin air is beyond any technology we have today.

I actually saw a 3d Display about 6 years back at SIGGRAPH that wasn't projected, which was generated by shining crisscrossing lasers so that where they intersected, the air was turned into a plasma and glowed.

Granted, it was 1 color, about 1dpi, and has a refresh rate of maybe 10hz, but it was really cool.

 

[Timo]

if you have the projector at the front

You can always have a projector inside a mist cylinder. Or outside it, but surrounding it from several directions.

You can also give the mist specific shapes that get augmented by the light show: you can pulse the flow, you can have the sprinklers arranged in specific patterns, and so forth.

In any case, I don't think Daniels' gizmo shot a cloud of mist into the room first.

Probably not. But the principle could be the same: some futuristic <tech> like forcefields suspends a reflector in a point of space from which a beam of light can be bounced. Although with tech like that, one could no doubt also suspend an emitter of light at the selected point of space, without the need for separate projectors and canvases.

As for eye projection technology, it's just something today's technology can do - not something it really would be doing today. Helmet displays provide direct retina projection in many experimental military and medical applications, and it's a trivially short hop from there to using multiple beams and having them track the eyes of multiple users (there's commercial tech on the latter undergoing evaluation, say, for tracking the eyes of a car driver and sounding an alarm if they show signs of falling-asleep-style drifting).

To get 3D out of that, you just need to project different moving images to the left and right eye, which is the ages-old trick the 1960s 3D movies already mastered.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tiberius]

if you have the projector at the front

You can always have a projector inside a mist cylinder. Or outside it, but surrounding it from several directions.

You can also give the mist specific shapes that get augmented by the light show: you can pulse the flow, you can have the sprinklers arranged in specific patterns, and so forth.

But still, any time you have the image being projected through any part of the mist, you're going to see it, like the old "laser beam through fog" trick.

In any case, I don't think Daniels' gizmo shot a cloud of mist into the room first.

Probably not. But the principle could be the same: some futuristic <tech> like forcefields suspends a reflector in a point of space from which a beam of light can be bounced. Although with tech like that, one could no doubt also suspend an emitter of light at the selected point of space, without the need for separate projectors and canvases.

But then that wouldn't fall into the category of "not far from been [sic] available today" that the OP spoke of.

As for eye projection technology, it's just something today's technology can do - not something it really would be doing today. Helmet displays provide direct retina projection in many experimental military and medical applications, and it's a trivially short hop from there to using multiple beams and having them track the eyes of multiple users (there's commercial tech on the latter undergoing evaluation, say, for tracking the eyes of a car driver and sounding an alarm if they show signs of falling-asleep-style drifting).

To get 3D out of that, you just need to project different moving images to the left and right eye, which is the ages-old trick the 1960s 3D movies already mastered.

Timo Saloniemi

True, I won't argue with you there, but I think we're a long way from taking this technology that looks at a single person's eyes from a short distance and using it to look at the eyes of a large group of people from a far distance.

 

[Timo]

There's obvious commercial demand for it, tho - just watch "Minority Report".

Image interpretation algorithms today are already incredibly good at finding eyes in the crowd. Any pocket camera can perform miracles in that respect, and never mind professional face recognition applications. Keeping lasers pointed at the identified targets shouldn't be a problem at all, either, considering the obvious military parallels.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[bryce]

While not even remotely cannon, this Esurance commercial uses those stupid *lamps* above the Ops and Con station on the bridge of the Abramsverse Enterprise bridge as 3D displays - which makes FAR MORE sense than having bringe *lights* shining down on LCD screens!!! (What is that for even? To make them easier to read? Uh...ever tried to read a LCD flat screen in bright light? They light doesn't help, as EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD knows!)

Every since I first saw them, I had hoped that they would turn out to be 3D HUD (Heads-Up Displays) projectors...or at maybe the Abramsverse version of those goose-neck displays on the bridge in "The Cage" and "Where No man Has Gone Before" (and in my mind, that's what they are.)

Anything but Gods-damned redundant *lamps*!!!

Anyway, here is the commercial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly5SblXS2Gs&hl=en&fs=1&">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly5SblXS2Gs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344">