I was somewhat saddened to see this story the other day over at Engadget.  To the best of my knowledge, Phillips was the biggest company making a market push with autostereoscopic displays.  It seems like this technology is headed back to the research labs for now.

That was the depressing image on the WowVX blog.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Sometimes the most important parts of a conversation are those that are left unsaid.  One of the things I noticed in my week at GDC was how little attention was given to stereoscopic 3D, especially as compared to the CES show only two months prior.

Even with nVidia, a pillars of the graphics industry, making PR waves with their launch of a stereo 3D gaming setup, the game developer community seems to be mostly keeping stereoscopic 3D at arm’s length.  The single tutorial of the entire conference on the subject of stereoscopic 3D, given by Blitz Games who developed a “stereoscopic 3D engine” that runs on XBOX360 and PS3, was attended by about 30 people.  On the show floor, Sony had two 3D displays, iZ3D had a booth, and it was rumored that nVidia was showing off their 3D gaming rig somewhere, but I never found it.  For a technology that is attention grabbing and visual, this is a notably low turnout.

So, does this mean that game developers aren’t embracing stereoscopic 3D as an important advancement in game technology?  Or is it just too early, with stereo standards still needing to be set on the display hardware itself?  At the Blitz talk, the speaker made the point that gamers drove the HDTV migration, as they were the bridge between the early adopters and the mainstream.  If gamers really do represent that valuable bridge market, then why didn’t we see Panasonic, LG, and Samsung making an effort to “wow” game developers with the potential of their stereoscopic 3D technology?  Perhaps they deemed the timing to be poor and will be exhibiting in greater force at next year’s GDC.  In any event, the impression I get is that all the hype around 3D displays at CES in January may have been slightly premature.

I’m still hoping that I will be gaming in 3D on all of my new XBOX360 games in a year from now, but I am pretty sure that I will have to be more patient than that.

It’s been a very busy few weeks here, in case you were wondering why the blog has gone quiet all of the sudden.  This is a quick post to let everyone know that Christian and I will be attending GDC in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.  If you would like to meet up, send me an e-mail to ENLIGHTEN3D@feelingsoftware.com.  I will definitely make time while I’m down there to blog about what’s going on at GDC.

Rumors, rumors; that’s what we get out of UK-based British Sky Broadcasting (aka Sky), a satellite TV provider.  In a story published a couple weeks back in the Times, Sky director of strategic product development Gerry O’Sullivan “said that a service ‘could be launched any time in the next two years’, depending on the results of trials and on ensuring there was enough content available.”

That is far from a commitment, but it is in line with what we have been hearing from others in the industry.  Let’s take a look at some of the different players involved in 3D cinema and TV, and where each of them stands.

TV display hardware manufacturers (like LG, Samsung, Panasonic): These companies are gearing up for production, had working products to show at CES, and already have some “3D-enabled” TV’s are already on the market.  Expect a bigger push later in 2009 and in 2010.

Film Producers (20th Century Fox, Disney): They are more than ready for 3D cinema and home TV to take off.  They have bet big on 3D with their marketing and production budgets, and want more outlets for the public to be able to view their films.  In the short term, they have the most to gain from having more 3D cinemas and 3D enabled TV’s (and Blu-Rays, DVDs), and are pushing 3D the hardest of anyone.  In fact, they have started to spread around these potential gains to get the ball rolling faster.

TV Content Distributors (cable TV & satellite TV providers like Sky): 3D is something they are considering, but is not yet the most pressing issue for them.  There is still work to be done on creating standards (this involves the hardware manufacturers too), and consortiums like 3D@Home have been created to deal with this.  Things are moving, but expect this to happen towards the later part of “within the next two years”, if it makes it in that time frame.  I will be posting updates on important developments on standardization coming out of 3D@Home and other standardization bodies.

TV Content Producers (Fox Sports, NBC sports): Here’s a quote I posted the other week:

“I hope the TV industry doesn’t get conned again the way we did with HD,” [Fox Sports TV Group chairman-CEO David] Hill said. “And we got conned. It cost us a fortune to go to HD, but do we get a penny more from the advertisers? Do we get an extra rating point? No. Everybody benefited but the broadcasters.”

My impression here is that there remains quite a bit of wheeling and dealing to be done, which takes time.  High-profile advocates of the technology like Mark Cuban are already pushing for 3D in sports, but even Mark can’t make this happen overnight by himself.

Cinemas: Movie theaters in North America want to go 3D, but need the investment money to upgrade their systems.  In our wonderful economic situation, cash is not the easiest thing to come by.  Cinedigm, a software supplier for digital theaters, had to revise their estimate downward from 1,500 3D screens in 2009 to under 200 (Boston Globe).  Still, the film producers have a lot to lose if there are not enough 3D cinemas to show their movies, so they will have to absorb some of the costs.  Expect more 3D-outfitted theaters in 2009.

These are my overall impressions on what is going on in the industry from what I’ve read, observed at CES, and seen in the theaters.  The web of the 3D TV and cinema industry is large, so there are certainly other important groups that have been left out; feel free to add your analysis in the comments.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Microsoft is set to buy 3DV, the developer of a markerless motion capture technology called ZCam.  Their system, which is something of a next-generation Playstation Eyetoy, should open up new doors for future game development on the Microsoft Xbox console line.  If it works as well as advertised, the possibilities are endless for new styles of game controls, but without having tried it out myself, I can’t say whether this is going to revolutionize gaming or be a neat add-on like the Eyetoy was for Sony.

According to the CrunchGear blog, the company had actually raised $38.6 million over the past 12 years, so despite the large dollar number, it’s hard to judge whether this will be viewed as a big win for 3DV or not.

Being a fan of all things 3D, I was pretty excited about the release of Coraline 3D (the Feeling Software team can vouch for my enthusiasm, as I probably mentioned the movie a half dozen times last week).  Last night I finally made it to the theater, paid my $2 premium for the 3D, got my RealD glasses, and made my way to my seat, waiting eagerly to be impressed.

And I was impressed.  Just not in the way that I was hoping to be.  Let’s begin with the good.  The animation, the artistic style, and the story were all wildly creative and will take your imagination for a crazy loop inside this fantasy world.  If I had a mind as creative as the folks who worked on this film, I would certainly be a more interesting person than I am today.  If you are a fan of art and animation, you should go see this movie.

Yet, what I was hoping to be impressed by was a quality 3D viewing experience, and I sadly admit that this was not the case.  Maybe it was because I was tired after a day at the office in front of a computer monitor, but as soon as the film started I felt my eyes straining, and after 60 minutes I had enough of the 3D.  For comparison’s sake, I didn’t have the same feeling when I saw Bolt in 3D.  A few memorably disorienting scenes include the “infinite-depth” portal to the other world, and the dragonflies in the bedroom, which I saw in double vision.  There’s no faster way than double vision to snap you out of a fantasy story.

While the 3D needs work in general, one scene used a 3D effect that made me turn to the person sitting next to me to exclaim “Wow!  That’s amazing!”  In the scene I am describing, you see Coraline talking as a reflection in her father’s computer monitor.  The depth effect gives the impression that she is behind the screen, as you would expect from a reflection.  If you are planning on seeing Coraline, keep an eye out for this effect in the first third of the movie; I thought it was a creative use of the new 3D toolset.

Overall Assessment -  Coraline: A ; Coraline3D: C+

In a demo presented at the TED conference last week, an MIT research group gave us a flavor of what the future of augmented reality might be.  Basically, their system involved a wearable projector, camera, and computer.  Using computer vision, the camera would identify what was in front of you, then project information on to this object or person.  Have a look at the video below for some neat augmented reality applications that we might see in the future.

Don’t expect this technology to hit the mass market next week; yet, what’s exciting to see is that researchers today are not only thinking of useful applications of augmented reality, but that they are then able to actually build and demonstrate them, even if the conditions must be controlled.  Visually augmented reality is already in the mass market in the form of in-vehicle GPS (amongst others), and as technology improves to be able to serve us more and more relevant information with fewer and fewer manually given clues, this field will only grow.

Personally, I doubt that carebear-style “light streaming from tummy” design will take off; with improvements in displays and optics, information-empowered glasses or contact lenses would be far less obtrusive.  Regardless of how this technology eventually gains market acceptance, kudos to professor Pattie Maes and student researcher Pranav Mistry for an inspiring technology demonstration.

See an in-depth write up of this technology at Wired.com

Here are a few screenshots of a project that we have been working on at Feeling Software.  From aerial photographs, this proof-of-concept shows how we can automatically build a 3D city model using our Feeling Constructive computer vision technology.

This was produced only using data that we were able to obtain internally.  Better imagery, along with GPS position information, can be used to create 3D city models of much greater quality.

In a second proof-of-concept, we use 5 ground-level photos taken with a standard digital camera to create a near photo-realistic 3D model of one of the buildings nearby to our office in Montreal.  This is done in a semi-automatic way, such that no 3D modeling experience is necessary to create the high quality 3D model.

Below, you can see how the City of Montreal uses the Feeling Engine GIS Edition as a visualization and planning tool for the city’s GIS department.  Our office is in the red building!

Today, local governements today are creating impressive 3D representations of their cities, both for internal planning purposes and as external marketing materials.  As the need for tools to create 3D cities rises across the globe, Feeling Software is looking for partners to bring these cutting-edge computer vision technologies to market.

One of my favorite blogs on the web is PetitInvention by a Tokyo-based concept designer named Mac Funamizu.  A few months ago, I posted how one of his concepts, the “Future of Mobile Search“, should be an inspiration to all computer vision scientists.

It seems like the folks at Google Earth find Mac’s work inspiring too.  Now, I have no way of knowing for sure that this was the source of their inspiration or whether it is just a happy coincidence, but have a look at the screenshots below and be the judge.

(above) Google Earth 5, released February 2nd, 2009

Future of Mobile Search - Search Beyond Time, posted July 9, 2008

Both Mac’s concept and Google Earth’s new release demonstrate a slider to look at imagery of the same scene over time.  It’s still a ways away from the location and orientation-matched mobile design, but nonetheless, it is impressive to see one of Mac’s more imaginative concepts already appearing in a real-world product.  We need more designers like Mac inspiring us with their ideas.  Does anyone else have a favorite design site that they use for inspiration?

Frequent readers of this blog are familiar with Presto3D, a 3D model marketplace that we built and launched a few months back.  The main distinguishing feature of that site was that artists could upload 3D models in a standard Maya or 3dsmax format, and we would automatically convert it to a form of COLLADA so that we could show a 3D preview of it within the browser.

In our latest update, you can now embed the 3D viewer with a specific model anywhere on the web.  A one time plug-in download is required, but it is definitely worth it.  The 3D rendering and speed is impressive, as is the artwork by hundreds of talented artists.  The artist is credited and their models are linked to in the embedded window, to provide extra promotion.  And anyone can embed the models anywhere, provided the artist grants permission.

Right now, the plug-in works on Windows in Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.  For those interested, the plug-in is a web-enabled version of the Feeling Engine.