Start-up gazes into crystal ball for 3D display

Daily Newsletters

Sign up to ZDNet UK's daily newsletter.

NEWS
The ideal computer display of today may be flat, but a start-up called Actuality Systems has gazed into the future, and what it has seen looks more like a crystal ball. The Burlington, Massachussetts company, founded in 1997, has been perfecting a type of 3D display with a basketball-sized glass dome that connects to an ordinary workstation to display 3D models and animations. On Tuesday the firm announced its first customer, the Adelphi, Maryland-based US Army Research Laboratory, which carries out research for the US army, the Department of Defence, NASA and other government bodies. Actuality's Perspecta display platform currently costs $40,000 (£28,000) and up, but the company says costs could drop until the device is affordable for ordinary users and gamers. "Component costs will decrease," said Actuality chief technology officer and co-founder Gregg Favalora. "There could be a desktop unit in the future." The model sold to the army lab is mounted on a stabilised rolling platform, which bears the display and an IBM workstation, along with a retractible keyboard, joystick and flat-panel display. The display has its own built-in Spatial Rendering Kernel, which is designed around open standards such as Open GL. This allows it to interact with mainstream applications running on Windows or Linux platforms. Favalora would not comment on the applications the army lab will use the display for, but the company said the display would be evaluated for command and control and field operations. The 3D mechanism behind Perspecta goes back to the 1960s, but had to wait for high-resolution processing and display technology caught up. Perspecta uses a collection of proprietary algorithms to slice 3D data into a format that can be replicated in three spatial dimensions. A projector then displays the data at 5,000 frames per second onto a rotating screen within the transparent sphere, in such a way that the eye sees a 3D image. The image is comprised of 198 two-dimensional slices, with a 768 x 768 pixel resolution for each slice. The image is displayed using a Texas Instruments 1600 MIPS digital signal processor with a 24Hz volume refresh. Each 10-inch-diameter image contains 100 million "volume pixels", or "voxels", according to Actuality, and can be viewed from any angle. Other systems either generate a 2D rendering of a 3D image, or require stereoscopic goggles to translate the display into what appears to be 3D. Actuality is initially targeting the pharmaceuticals industry, where researchers need to see the interactions of 3D models in designing and manufacturing drugs. It will be a while before such technology is suitable for mass-market use, however. Besides the high cost of building a Perspecta, display technology needs to improve; at present, full-resolution images are only displayed in eight colours, and brightness and contrast could be improved, Favalora said. And for some uses, such as displaying the types of holographic images seen in 1977's Star Wars, computing technology itself will have to make advances. "The industry is still a little ways off from full-motion 3D movies," Favalora said.
See the Hardware News Section for the latest update on everything from MP3 players and PDAs to supercomputing. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

  • Login

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

JCB33

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

4 hours ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
Moley

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

6 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
greycynic

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

6 hours ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity
GrueMaster

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

8 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Frederick Wrigley

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

9 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
bdantas

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

9 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

10 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

10 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Moley

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

11 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
ramwellian

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

11 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?
BugStalker

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

11 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB
whs001

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

11 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Moley

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

11 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
45283

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

15 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA
Burn-IT

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

16 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs
ewallace

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

16 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
fgvrg56

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

17 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?
Ben Woods

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

18 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
Marcus Karlsson

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

19 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
apexwm

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

1 day ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility