New 3D Process Announced

[Donald Binks]

Alexander Marani
Special to "Industrial Scientist - Australia"

Published Tuesday April 1st, 2014

Scientists at the C.S.I.R.O. (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) announced today that they have perfected a new concept in digital photography that is so innovative it has left most people who have had the opportunity to see it, speechless.

Dr. Wolfgang Hoffenburg said that the best way to describe the context in layman's terms was that it is based on laser beams - "a whole series of them, that are focused on whatever it is desired to be reproduced, sort of like a scan, except that each of these "scans" is made in a thirtieth of a second. The "image" thus derived is then rendered into a continuous flow and stored on disc. To reproduce the stored image/s, the basic mechanics are simply reversed."

That is it in essence, however the whole process is extremely complicated and there are a number of hitches that have to be completely ironed out before it becomes a commercially feasible operation. One of the problems so far is the disc space required to store the successive images. "We have only managed to shoot a ten minute sequence so far and that has occupied 250 terabytes of information - way beyond the range of any ordinary feasibility, however we are working on this aspect and wish to get the storage down to realistic levels over the next few months."

When an object is "photographed", the device utilised is a box about three feet square from which upwards of more than 100 laser type lights whizz about taking in detailed information of whatever it is that is placed in front of them. There are that many lights apparently in order to re-create depth at differing levels, which when 'played back' re-create whatever was in the scene with an uncannily realistic three dimensional effect. It is if everything is absolutely real. It has to be seen to be believed just how realistic this is.

"Another of the problems we had", Dr Hoffenburg continued, "was in the playback. We had to diffuse or minimise the scanning effect from the lasers and thus just represent a clear image without any reference to the origin of the light source. This we have been able to accomplish by effectively applying a mask of 'black light' around each of the transmitted lasers from the source point to the object point. It is not entirely perfected but we are very pleased with the the results we have been able to accomplish so far."

This is a step that will revolutionise photography as we know it. It takes virtual reality to its ultimate goal and will completely change the way we may perhaps view films or television. Dr. Hoffenburg said that he envisages a full working commercial prototype should be available withing the next three to five years.

[bobfells]

April Fool's?

[boblipton]

Donald's in Australia.

Bob

[bobfells]

Donald's in Australia.

Bob

It's already April 1st there.

[All Darc]

3D laser scanning exist for exemple to the exterior of a houses, but it's very, veeerrryy slow.
It will take a long time until it get fast as 30 frames per second.

When it get, if get, it could be used to capture depth masks in real time, that combined with photography would make 3D process more easy and open much new possibilities.

[Bruce Long]

I've always felt that something would eventually come along which would make today's "normal" films seem as archaic to future mainstream audiences as silent-era films are to today's mainstream.

That's one reason why current filmmakers should do all they can to honor the old films; because if they don't, they are giving future generations permission to totally discard and ignore what is being created now.