APPLYING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF 3D - Part 1

Fundamentals - PART 1

Thumbs, horses, frogs and birds.

Over the coming months and years as the 3D hype builds and escalates, you will encounter 3D references about movies, television, cell phones, computer displays, games and that big screen in the family room.

Before you can understand all this, it really helps to understand why and how you can see 3D at all.

Stereopsis is the ability to see 3D. It is also known as depth-perception. The reason humans can do this has as much to do with our thumbs, as with our eyes. Yup... our thumbs!

Because we have opposable thumbs, we are very good at manipulating objects. And because we manipulate objects, it really helps to have a very good sense of depth-perception. Think how hard it would be to thread a needled if you could not perceive the needle and thread in 3D.

That is also why our eyes are located in front of our face. To see 3D, you need to look at objects from two slightly different angles. The two images that form in your two eyes and are sent to the brain, don't quite line up.

If you want to check this out, hold your hand in front of your face. Now close one eye, then the other. Do this sequentially back and forth. You'll notice that your hand appears to be in two different places in context to the background. Your brain knows how to calculate this difference into distance from the eyes. Pretty neat stuff!

It also means that if you happen to be blind in one eye, you can't see in 3D.

Horses don't have thumbs and probably can't see 3D very well. Their eyes are located more on the left and right sides of their face instead of in front. This has the advantage of a very wide field-of-view. They are better at seeing everything around them and running away if there is a problem. Humans gave up field-of-view, but we have better 3D (and can throw rocks).

A frog has eyes that look to both sides and can also swivel forward. Proportionate to their head size, their eyes are set apart much wider than ours. This is a good 3D enhancement for frogs. A frog needs really good 3D to flick that tongue out and nail insects flying by. Without 3D frogs would not be able to catch flying bugs.

A lot of birds and lizard are 3D hybrids.

They tend to have their eyes totally on the sides of their head and are really good at seeing two giant bubbles of image all around.

It help to avoid being eaten. But did you ever notice a lizard or a bird bobbing their heads up and down? Guess what they are doing? They are making two images, one over the other, in order to get a 3D picture of their surroundings. Ain't nature clever?

SUMMARY:

You can see 3D because you have two eyes that are offset so that each one observes the scene from a slightly different angle. This helps us to have depth perception, which is essential to refined manipulation of objects.

In order to create 3D media you need to generate or capture two pictures of each scene from similarly set apart views.

Then, in order to show that media in 3D, you need to get those two images separately into each of your eyes.

All 3D technology is based on this foundation. Most of the discussion about 3D on the Applying Technology blog will, in one way or another, also be built on this foundation.

So, this is Theo Applying The Fundamentals of 3D technology to thumbs, horses, frogs and birds.