Interactive 360º Light Field Display

As humans we naturally see in 3D. However, most people have only ever seen visual playback on a 2D television. Most have come to accept it. Recently though, there have been advances in 3D film.

Getting to the point, today I came across this new 3D display being developed. I urge you to at least look at the images in the paper as it is really fascinating, and if you have the bandwidth the video shows off the technology very well. It is basically works by spinning a mirror and shining light onto it to produce a 3D image viewable from all angles. Since the mirror spins at a high speed, it creates the illusion of a 3D object.

As you move around the image, so you get a different view. This allows for "view-independent effects such as occlusion." It recreates the object in real 3D space, so there's no need for any special glasses such as IMAX 3D. It also allows for a number of people to gather around the display and watch from different angles. The rendering is so efficient that they can display fully interactive scenes.

If you're interested, there is plenty more to read up about it in the paper. It goes into a fair amount of detail on how the display functions and the rendering behind it.