Applications of 3D Technology
When thinking 3D, our minds quickly go to the television and the 3D TV episodes. There are however several applications of this technology that transcends the realms of just TV and film making.
Attempts to view recorded in three dimensions otherwise known as 3D started far back in the fall of the 19TH century in the film industry. Since this period however, the technology has been applied to several other areas of interest including TV, computer and others.
One interesting area where the 3D image viewing has found a useful and versatile application is in the shopping of goods and services through online superstores.
3D and the Film Industry
As stated earlier, the history of application of this technology to image recording and viewing to the recording and shooting of films dates back the falloff the 19th century. Pioneering works of British film maker, William Friese-Greene brought a frenzy of activities and interests that was sustained for another half century through several inventions and modifications.
This application went from the original attempts at this technology recording using separate colors in the recording of motion pictures in such a way that they could appear to be in 3D when projected. The developments of the years to follow resulted in the development of several techniques in stereoscopic viewing.
Stereoscopic viewing, a visual illusion to create depth to an image, went through several stages thereafter with the invention and application of several new techniques and modification of existing one. These techniques include the invention of the Teleview system by Laurens Hammond, a Cornell University graduate. This technique employed a technique that involved arranging films in alternate pattern for the right and left eye, a system that was called “alternate-frame sequencing”.
There was later to be a shift to dual strip recording and the invention of the Polaroid filters that heralded the coming of the golden era through to the present day digital imaging and High Definition 3D television.
3D Applications to the computer
With the widespread use of personal computers came the desire to apply this technology to computers. The first 3D technology for personal computers appeared in 1987. For a long time however, its application to computers remained an exclusive domain of graphic developers and gamers. The playstations of various grades saw a rich display of the application of this technology. The earlier applications were quite slow and it took ages to process then on the PC. Recent advances in this technology have resulted in the incorporation of 3D acceleration and other technology has rendered this problem a thing of the past.
Though these are commendable advances, programmers still find a lack of a lack of a dominant media player that can work with 3D graphics on the Web, to be the bane of application of this technology to computers.
Recent advances in motherboard improvements have made the internal transfer of massive 3D databases and large bitmap graphics a possibility.
Graphics cards and the AGP slot
The advent of accelerator graphic cards and AGP slots has improved the already encouraging picture. This means that processes like creating lighting effects or transforming images previously performed by the CPU can now be quickly handled by the graphic cards. This means better performance and speed, thus making this technology manipulations visible in real time.
With these applications you can now view products in three dimensions during online shopping. You could try on glasses and view all the sides of mug online just with the click of the mouse.
Implications of 3D usability on the PC
With increased handling speed occasions by the accelerator cards and possibilities of internal transfer of massive files, it means engineers, architects, designers landscape artists will increasingly find the possibilities of this technology to the PC too attractive to overlook.