3D display of 3D virtual environments
Feb 3rd, 2007 by jeffmcneill
The University of Michigan 3D research group created a low-cost 3D projection display.
Note, the cost on this is coming down to around $5k. Why is this interesting? Well, we could actually get a 3d display of virtual environments such as Second Life and Google Earth.
Turns out the open-sourcing of the SL client enabled researchers at the University of Michigan to output stereoscopic video from inside SL, as reported by the New Media Consortium blog.
Some additional resources on this technology
- How to build a Geo-Wall
Some Slash/Dot discussion on the issue (a delightful combination of the useful, the speculative, and the clueless, as always) - NYTimes article from 2005
- Forbes article from 2006
- Research papers at UM Geo-Wall
As soon as folks figure out the multi-screen display and gesture navigation, virtual worlds will become immersive, manipulable augmented reality — without the head-mounted displays (just need the 3d glasses). Yum!
It’s a great development, though I spoke to the UMichigan developers last week, and they face major hassles they way LL updates their client.
Each update requires the open source adapted version they created to redo all their mods– if they do not update the open source modded version, they cannot login to the world.
At least, that is what I understood.