Cheoptics360: the future of 3D video is here

Forget what you know about lenticular-based 3D displays, holograms, and even those "real" 3D image projectors being toyed around with in Japan. That 3D image you're looking at above was generated within the Cheotpics360, a four-sided transparent pyramid develop by a Danish team of engineers and designers from viZoo and Romboll. The Cheoptics360 can display both computer and film content when used either indoors or out and scale from 1.5-meters on up to 30-meters. The video images generated by the four projectors are re-assembled within the prism-like pyramid through a process of mirroring and reflection making them appear to float in mid-air. Hear that gamers, how 'bout setting this rig up at your next frag fest! Check the video after the break... you will believe.

[Thanks, BrianMP]

[Pacey @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:18AM]

I'm now waiting for the first report of someone being cought watching porn on this thing

[TJ @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:23AM]

That is insane... the Jetsons isn't too far off.

[Jens @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:28AM]

I saw this at Copenhagen airport a year ago, with a Toyota advert, pretty cool. Imagine this to go with your next console.

[starwarskid @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:54AM]

I have a message for you Obi-Wan Kanobi.

[Moogle @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:29AM]

I see no evidence that this is 3d and not just a 2d image that is viewable from 360�. Which is cool, but not really what we were looking for. I'm guessing the concept is similar to if you are looking at yourself in a pair of mirrors that are at a 90� angle, you see yourself centered at the corner of the two mirrors. This instead might just be angled downward towards 4 projection screens, one for each side. It seems to be mostly transparent, so I'm guessing the 'mirrors' being used are just shiny glass/acrylic/whatever, so you see the bright reflection of the screen over the background

Now if they could figure out a way to make this 3d by using an angle filter or something, which seems like it would be hard but not impossible, that would be awesome.

[Gil @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:56AM]

I think Moogle is right. It's like a 2D sprite in 3D games. The 2D image always faces you.
Don't get me wrong this is HUGE but no 3D display.

[Major Malfunction @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:28AM]

Yep. The guy makes it sound like anything thrown in the machine is 3D but its simply a viewable 2D plane in 360 degrees. Or so it seems.

[SideSwipe @ Nov 3rd 2006 1:56AM]

I'm with Moogle - not 3D. If you think about it, each video has a LOT of "black" (non-projected light) which, thanks to no background, makes it seem more like it's floating.

Give us a solid background (like any TV show, movie or game) and it won't look the same.

[naMretupmoC @ Nov 3rd 2006 5:25AM]

Ok Ok, so it is just a 2d image being displayed in a 3d volume, a sprite of something yes, BUT what if you dropped a few sensors into the invironment that could tell the users position relitive to the screen? Then -while you wouldn't be able to tell depth anymore than a 2d image- you would be able to interact with it like a 3d item. The software would need to handle a 3d item and rotations, but display a person in this, and as you walk around to their back, it would then be displaying their back. It would be like a one eyed persons perception of the real world, no depth discernable but still 3d.

[HackedByJoe @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:35AM]

This is insane!! Think of the millions of applications for something like this. Concerts, Gaming, Imax replacement, museums, advertising, any kind of presentation, teaching, graphic design, ... the list is endless.

I wonder if they will be able to make a desktop size version. I don't care what the cost is. I WANT IT!!

[iptydafu @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:35AM]

Reminds me of those parabolic-mirror dishes with the hole in the top--the quarter or marble is "floating" in the hole. Beautifully rendered. Amazing future for it--integrated into an MRI system, chemical modeling, etc.

[Earl @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:40PM]

Seems to me that's exactly what this is :D I thought of that right off. I think this is just a larger scale implementation of that concept.

[MikeTLive @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:39AM]

why is the universal logo still forward readable from the front abd back of the display? shouldnt it be reversed? wait for it to flash back up near the end.

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:44AM]

Well the video looks pretty cool, that's for sure.

Coming soon to some hyper-rich guy near you!

[wickedjimmy @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:52AM]

More videos here:
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-cheoptics360-holographic-display-system-demo

[badscoop @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:53AM]

I agree with the posters on the 3Dness - seems like its kinda 2.5D. The image fronts do seem to follow the camera, and the pan angles are mostly small.

[adam.geffner @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:54AM]

On 1 hand, you can argue that it's difficutl to truly tell if it's 3D or 2D since we are afterall looking at it via 2D medium.

However.... How can they show 3D content with things like movie-video content which are 2D from the start. Can't take a 2D video feed and miraculously extrapulate what it's 3D counterpart should be. (Yes, you CAN do that with a still image with multiple angle shots than morph/merge together, but that's not we're talking about here).

Adam
www.bridgednetworks.com

[DJDoc @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:35AM]

They should show a STILL 3D image with the camera panning around, so we can see if the 3D effect is any good at all.

Annoying.

If they're rotating and moving the image while the camera is panning, we have no idea if it's any good. We can pan a camera in front of a flat display with a rotating 3D image on the display and it will end up looking like it's rotating in 3D space.

Otherwise it's a very cheap parlor trick. Show us a NON-rotating image, pan around it, and then we can tell what kind of (1) opacity (2) distortion the images have.

[Gil @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:48AM]

I beg to differ.
A)it's not a parlor trick
B)it's certainly not cheap :)

Honestly this is great for advertising and presentations, concerts, huge logos etc. and it's going to make a killing in that market but it's not 3D yet.

Googling around for 3D displays I came upon this:
http://www.holografika.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEhCSaCekDI&mode=related&search=

THAT is Holographic display

[Josh @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:34AM]

.....you're my only hope.

[red satori @ Nov 3rd 2006 3:55PM]

to adam.geffner:

Actually, there are no less than four major universities, including MIT, which are working on computer extrapolation of three dimensional space from two dimensional images. So far, one of the computers has successfully modelled multiple three dimensional images from various two dimensional pictures. They do require a super computer in order to make all the proper calculations, and from what I gathered reading about the articles, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 million lines of code to be able to turn images into 3d models. And while the technology is far from perfect (there were some very bad renderings of the 3d space in a couple of the pictures), it is starting to look really good. Not only was it able to exrapolate basic 3d mechanisms, but the camera was able to turn to a 90 degree angle. Not pure 3d, but getting there very quickly. With their software, I venture it would take 5-6 images of a building to turn it into a complete 3d model with very minimal rendering issues.

[DJDoc @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:51AM]

I've given it some more thought, and I'm annoyed.

I think they should call it "Cheatoptics 360"...

1) Obviously, it can't be true 3D, because there is no way to produce true 3D without all the visual information, which you can't really have, unless the image is 100% CGI, produced from a model. You can't passively record all angles simultaneously (unless you do some sort of Terahertz-wave tomography, which is... never mind.

2) The display quality looks like garbage, reminiscent of holograms from Star Wars Episode I.

3) Opacity. What do objects placed in front of each other do? This display does nothing that's really "3D". It's really misleading.

I'm sure somebody might find a purpose for this technology in some niche... but I think they're really, really being deceptive about what this does. Most 3D displays are a visual trick (2 cameras) to create the illusion of depth. These guys seem like they're doing even less than THAT... plus giving you a grainy image.

[Alex C @ Nov 2nd 2006 10:13AM]

Ah right yes i'm sure you can see perfectly clearly what the image quality is like from a YOUTUBE VIDEO.

[everrette powell @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:46AM]

seriously does the US invent anything anymore?

[Danny @ Nov 3rd 2006 3:17AM]

not that i know of

[osten @ Nov 5th 2006 4:50PM]

It's not like they stopped. They just didn't start yet.

[Alexander @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:49AM]

I wish they would display a SINGLE STATIC polygon, and then pan the camera around it showing that it was in fact showing the sides of the polygon.

Because what this says to me is it's kinda like a multi-monitor setup, but instead of being wrapped around you/your head, it's flipped inside out. And with 4 sources, it's a pretty craptacular one.

Also, it's dark in there. Who the hell is going to be able to see this in the noon-day sun?

BOLLOCKS I SAY!

[I know Everything @ Nov 2nd 2006 11:51AM]

Yes it is real. A similar tech was used in a performance by Jesper Just (a Dutch artist) in NYC last year:
http://thebrooklynrail.org/archives/DEC05/ART/performa.html

[Clippy @ Nov 2nd 2006 10:11AM]

beat me to the Star Wars reference.....grrr.....

[MacD @ Nov 2nd 2006 6:34PM]

As far as I can tell, this thing can do true 3d...you see this when the universal logo comes up for the first time; there's an obvious difference between video input and 3d input (although I do definitely agree they should show two fly-arounds, one for video, one for CG).
Video input is just a plane within the pyramid (and how could it be more than that without the extra information, as noted above?), but 3d input (like the phone, the shoe and the rotating pyramids) is projected in 3d, spatially inside the pyramid.

Cool thing, but I wonder how much the display medium (the pyramid in which everything is projected) costs, what material it actually is and how it is manufactured.

[Robert @ Nov 2nd 2006 11:03AM]

...looks an awful lot like what we saw Morbius use in the Krell labratory in the 1956 classic "Forbidden Planet" :->

[Jeff @ Nov 2nd 2006 11:25AM]

Cant wait to see this thing in time square. :)

Seems like an awful lot of work just to make a 2d image seem to float... i'd wager there's more to it than that. ...at least an illusion of depth, even it it does work like a sprite.

[Derrick @ Nov 2nd 2006 11:48AM]

Well, the images that they were showing on that screen were probably orignally filmed in 2-D. Therefore, unless you use multiple cameras to film the original footage, you can't display a 360 degree view of a object. But I agree that on some of the animations it wasn't that impresssive of a display. It didn't look like true 3-D

[Rick Lyon @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:00PM]

Wow.

[Haggis @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:07PM]

Is that LaLa from Tiki Bar?

[James @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:48PM]

It is not 3D. its a 2D display with a very wide viewing angle (i.e. 360 degrees)
Why does engadget keep mentioning 3D??? It's really misleading.
What I wanna ask is how the image looks outdoors, when there is sun?

[afuenza @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:07PM]

Impressive !!!!

[PeteC @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:16PM]

If anyone knows what the background music is, I'd be interested!

[Chuck @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:17PM]

I believe the "converted" images (like the Universal symbol) and the videos of the people are 2D. The same image projected from all four angles.

However, with CGI you could (and apparently they do) produce a true 3D image.

Someone posted this link earlier: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-cheoptics360-holographic-display-system-demo

Go to "Video 2" and watch carefully as the camera pans around the rotating shoe display and rotating phone display. You actually see the contuance of the rotating object from the new angle.

[Joe Blow @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:32PM]

I agree with the posters above that it's nothing more than a 2D image that is viewable in 360 degrees, nothing more. It's like Time Traveler on a large scale. Impressive, but not really innovative.

[Graham @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:31PM]

Actually, I believe this can actually show 3D, as opposed to a "sprite" that is always facing you (ala Doom). If you look closely, when the Universal screen is displayed you can see it is only facing one direction--it does not appear to rotate when the camera is panning. It's hard to tell from the video though, and their website is slower than molasses.

[dave @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:38PM]

As said earlier... *NOT* 3D, but 2D that is viewable from all sides.
Example. I'm seeing the front of that japanese girl dancing. A guy standing on any other side is also seeing the front of that japanese girl dancing.

*NOT 3D*

[J. Evans Turner @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:06PM]

This is not entirely new. Does anyone else remember Sega's Holosseum and Time Traveler acarde machines? It's the same concept, but they use several mirrors instead of a dome, so you can stand at the same level. The image is still identical, no matter which side you watch it from. A static object will appear to "follow" you by facing you as you walk around. This breaks the effect somewhat and the only way to avoid it is to show images with the camera constantly spinning around it.

[J. Evans Turner @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:07PM]

Here are the Sega hologram laserdisc games which used very simlar technology:
http://klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=B&game_id=10124
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=H&game_id=8132

[wickedjimmy @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:06PM]

Would everyone please just stop complaining? I understand that it is not true 3D, but don't be so quick to dismiss it. Being able to see the same image from 360 degrees is still a very useful design. Think if you had this thing in your living room. The traditional way for a group of people to watch a movie would be to have everyone in the room facing the same wall, but this can be placed in the center of the room and everyone can sit around it (like a campfire). This would also be awesome for gaming because think how much better it would be to look your opponents in the eye while you kick their asses.

[joel @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:18PM]

no it's not 3d like a hologram, but it's 3d like a 3d computer display. the images would look 3d without any funny glasses or viewing angle limitations. there is a subtle difference between a 3d image and a holographic image. for producing 3d images, it works perfectly.

[TT75 @ Nov 10th 2006 3:06PM]

Check out the link that wickedjimmy posted. It shows both holographic type images (i.e. 3d in 2d space like those old physics class experiements with lasers and holographic film) and true 3d images. Seems it's capable of both depending on the application. Wouldn't want to display the Universal logo backwards or people couldn't read it...Same with the Toyota ad. But, non-text makes sense to spin around in 3d space...

[Totally fake @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:27PM]

Wow, a reflection of a 2d video monitor on a pane of glass.


This is completely bogus. No new technology here. It is absolutely not a "volumetric display".

It's four triangular-shaped panes of glass. With a video monitor on the floor under each of them. What you're seeing is a reflection on the glass of four video monitors in the base.

It's a peppers-ghost gag. The "technology" dates back to 1862.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper's_Ghost

You got fished-in by an overly-enthusiastic press-release.

[sven @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:43PM]

I agree. It's nicely done, but mostly because of marketing and cheap music that's probably cut from a porn movie.

[jeebs @ Nov 2nd 2006 2:43PM]

I think there are some 2-D images being used, but only to make people think about the possiblities (movies, etc.). But there also appear to be true 3-D images, for example the triangles, cell phone, etc. This vid is marketing as well as demo. I wish I could see it in person and not in some vid, as vid can only capture so much.