Introduction

These proceedings combine, in one volume, the papers from two separate but complementary conferences: Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XVIII and The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2007. These were two of the 20 conferences that composed the 2007 IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology Symposium, held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, California, USA, in January 2007.

Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XVIII

This year’s Stereoscopic Displays and Applications (SD&A) conference, the eighteenth in the series, was held over 29–31 January 2007. It featured a broad range of topics, presentations, and events.

The first day of the SD&A conference hosted four technical sessions: Stereoscopic Display Applications (chaired by Andrew Woods), Medical Applications of Stereoscopy (chaired by Michael Weissman), Stereoscopic Image Processing and Intermediate View Reconstruction (chaired by Janusz Konrad), and Stereoscopic Human Factors (chaired by John Merritt). The technical sessions formed the backbone of the conference, and their content is detailed in the papers contained in this proceedings volume.

The final formal session of the first day was the two-hour 3D Theatre Session, chaired by Andrew Woods and Chris Ward. The purpose of this regular event is to showcase examples of 3D video and films that are being produced all around the world. This year, we screened the following 3D content (or segments thereof) on the conference’s two high-quality circularly polarized stereoscopic rear projection systems:

• “June” by NFB Canada
• “Loop… 3D adventures of a Solution Provider” by Fast Forward with Carlomagno (Italy)
• “I am Calling You – Backstage” by Fast Forward with Carlomagno (Italy)
• “Mayavi” by GV Films, Ltd. (India)
• “Test Piece 01” by Takashi Kawai and Kei Shichiri (Japan)
• “Visionsense Stereoscopic Endoscopy” by Visionsense (Israel and USA)
• “Pompei 79AD” by Virtualand (Italy)
• “Death Valley 3D Daze” by Tree-D Films (USA)
• “Alertness Matters” by Hall Media (USA)
• “Fluffies” by ACE a.s. (Czech Republic)
• “Pool Shark” by Neil Alexand and GALI-3D (Czech Republic)
• “Pig Story” by Secondary School of Applied Cybernetics and GALI-3D (Czech Republic)
• “St Valentines Shoe” by Secondary School of Applied Cybernetics and GALI-3D (Czech Republic)
• “Real Time OPENGL stereo capture to file” by GALI-3D (Czech Republic)
• “Space Station in 3D” by European Space Agency (Netherlands)
• “Born of a Car” by Skoda Auto Multimedia team and GALI-3D (Czech Republic)
• “The Time of Illusion” by NHK Technical Service (Japan)
• “FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour” by Haptics (South Africa) and Crew 972 (Israel)
• “Lenny Lipton and Ray Zone at World 3D Expo II” by 21st Century 3D (USA)
• “Humira 3D” by 21st Century 3D (USA)
• “Avandia 2006” by 21st Century 3D (USA)
• “3DVX3.5 Live Action Demo 2007” by 21st Century 3D (USA)
• “Mitsubishi Outlander” by BUG Norway
• “World of 3D” by Lightspeed Design Group (USA)
• “Intelligent Vehicle Safety” by Lightspeed Design Group (USA)
• “DSV clips” by Lightspeed Design Group (USA)
• “‘06 The Big One” by Bernard Mendiburu (USA)
• “Home of the Blizzard: The 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition Stereoscopic Photographic Record” by Peter Morse, University of Western Australia (Australia)
• “New York City in 3-D” by Jeff Joseph / SabuCat Productions (USA).

The source resolution of the material ranged from field-sequential NTSC (640×480) to dual-channel stereoscopic 1920×1080i (full HD). The two-hour session was particularly popular, with over 200 attendees, and was enjoyed by all.

In recognition of the high quality of material shown at the 3D Theatre, this year we offered, for the first time, Best of Show prizes. Our inaugural judge was Dr. Samuel Zhou, Director of Image Technology at IMAX Corporation, who chose the following two winners:

• Best of Show (Live Action): “The Time of Illusion” by NHK Technical Service (Japan), and
• Best of Show (Computer Graphics): “FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour” by Haptics (South Africa) and Crew 972 (Israel).

Congratulations to our winners.

The evening concluded with an enjoyable meal at the BoTown Chinese Restaurant in downtown San Jose. It was a good chance for nearly 80 conference attendees to mingle and talk in a relaxed atmosphere. The visit to BoTown is a regular feature of the conference. We have been so many times now that the owners remember us and look forward to our visit each year!

The second day of the SD&A conference included four technical sessions, on Stereoscopy on Mobile Devices (chaired by Julien Flack), Multiview Content (chaired by Gregg Favalora), Autostereoscopic Displays (chaired by Steven Smith), and Stereoscopic Developments (chaired by Vivian Walworth). Again, the full papers from these technical sessions are contained in this proceedings volume.

The final event of the day was the ever-popular Demonstration Session, which we have run for many years. This year, for the second time, it was held as a symposium-wide event, open to demonstrators from all twenty conferences. Almost half of the demonstrations were connected to the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference. It was again pleasing to see such a wide variety of stereoscopic imaging systems on display and to see an even larger audience actively engaging with the various displays. The session was scheduled for a full three hours, and the stereoscopic demonstrators were kept busy for that entire time and more. This year the following items were on display at the demonstration session:

This year the following items were on display at the demonstration session:

• Alan Sullivan from Lightspace Technologies (Norwalk, Connecticut) demonstrated the DepthCube 3D volumetric display showing volumetric medical images.
• John Rauseo from Polaris Sensor Technologies (Huntsville, Alabama) demonstrated their 10” and 17” stereoscopic flat panel displays based on the variable polarization angle technique and viewed using polarized 3D glasses.
• John Dammann from the Army Research Laboratory (Adelphi, Maryland) demonstrated a new 3D terrain visualization technique using a LIDAR dataset of Washington DC on a Sharp RD3D autostereoscopic laptop.
• Avi Yaron and staff from Visionsense (Orangeburg, New York) demonstrated a single miniature stereoscopic sensor suitable for use in endoscopes and other applications. Sample 3D video from the camera was shown on a Planar StereoMirror stereoscopic display.
• Nick Holliman and Barbara Froner from Durham University (Durham, United Kingdom) used a Sharp RD3D autostereoscopic laptop to demonstrate task stimulus that was used in their paper to compare the performance of seven different 3D displays. They also demonstrated a high contrast 36 view lenticular image using a new lenticular element from Ocuity.
• Professor Hideki Kakeya and Hiromitsu Ebisu from University of Tsukuba (Tsukuba, Japan) demonstrated MOEVision: a multiview 3D display with floating real image.
• Takafumi Koike from Hitachi Ltd (Kawasaki, Japan) demonstrated an integral videography display with an optimized color filter layout. The display was interactively controllable with a game control pad.
• Ianir Ideses from Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel) demonstrated real-time automatic 2D to 3D conversion algorithm on two PC laptops viewed using anaglyph glasses.
• Aira Hotta from Toshiba Corporation (Kawasaki, Japan) demonstrated the Head Dome Projector — a head-mountable personal projection system in which a 2D image is projected on the inside of a dome-shaped screen with wide viewing angle of about 150 degrees horizontal.
• John Miller from dep3D (Los Gatos, California) demonstrated a range of stereoscopic PC games and stereoscopic video on their polarized stereoscopic rear-projection display powered by a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card.
• Kevin Gilson from Parsons Brinkerhoff (Denver, Colorado) showed sample 3D renderings and animations for design visualization viewed using a DepthQ stereoscopic projector.
• Jason Goodman from 21st Century 3D (New York) demonstrated the 3DVX3.5 High-Definition stereoscopic video camera and showed some sample footage from the camera using a Sharp AL3D autostereoscopic laptop.
• Mike Weissman and Forrest Fleming from TrueVision Systems (Santa Barbara, California) demonstrated TrueVision, a real-time HD (1280×1024×2 @ 30p) 3D video camera system for stereomicroscopes. Live microstereoscopic video was displayed on a Planar StereoMirror stereoscopic display.
• Pat Green and Scott Robinson from Planar Systems (Beaverton, Oregon) demonstrated the Planar StereoMirror SD2320W 23” widescreen 1920x1200 stereoscopic monitor. 3D content shown included medical stereoscopic images.
• Chaio Wang from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, California) demonstrated stereoscopic panorama creation software on a Sharp AL3D autostereoscopic laptop.
• Shin-Ching Yeh from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, California) demonstrated a virtual reality clinical experiment on post-stroke rehabilitation using different stereoscopic displays: a Sharp LL-151-3D autostereoscopic monitor, a CRT monitor with LCS 3D glasses, and an eMagin stereoscopic HMD.
• Graham Woodgate from Ocuity (Oxford, United Kingdom) demonstrated a cell phone handset fitted with an autostereoscopic display using its polarization activated microlens technology. A range of still and moving image 3D content was shown on the phone.
• Nobauki Takanashi from NEC Corporation (Sagamihara, Japan) demonstrated two cell phone autostereoscopic displays (2.5” diagonal and 320 x 2 (R,L) x 480 x3 (R,G,B) resolution). Content shown included a motion 3D movie and 2D/3D still pictures.
• Boyd MacNaughton from MacNaughton, Inc. (Beaverton, Oregon) demonstrated the Perceiva 19” 1280x1040 dual LCD stereoscopic monitor based on the variable polarization angle technique and viewed with passive polarized 3D glasses. Also shown were the new NuVision washable active 3D glasses for 3D cinema applications.
• Masayuki Iizuka from Tokyo Polytechnic University (Atsugi, Japan) demonstrated the merits and demerits of united, synthesized, and mixed type autostereograms.
• Benjamin Rose from North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina) demonstrated stereoscopic renderings of fire on a PC laptop.
• Kazuhisa Yanaka from Kanagawa Institute of Technology (Atsugi, Japan) showed an autostereoscopic display based on two mutually perpendicular lenticular sheets.
• Morgan Hurley from Richardson Electronics (El Cajon, California) demonstrated the Philips 20” 20 3D2C03/00 2D/3D switchable 9-view autostereoscopic display.
• Robert-Paul Berretty and Dick De Boer from Philips (Eindhoven, Netherlands) demonstrated a prototype 42” 2D/3D switchable 9-view autostereoscopic display in which the display could be part 2D and part 3D at the same time.
• Peter Wimmer from 3DTV.AT (Linz, Austria) demonstrated stereoscopic player (3D video player), stereoscopic multiplexer (3D video recording), and two Sony HDV cameras mounted as a stereo-pair controlled by a LANC camera controller from Digi-dat (Roth, Germany).
• Raffaello Galli from ANDXOR Corporation (New York) demonstrated a megapixel digital stereo camera on a variable stereo base support controlled by Solid-Look software and displayed on two autostereoscopic displays — a Sharp LL-151-3D and a DTI 19”. An integrated, noninvasive eye tracking system allowed hands-free camera movement.
• Ed Lazarus from Bristlecone Corporation (New York) demonstrated a stereo microscope fitted with two analog cameras attached through Solid-Look software and displayed on a DTI 19” autostereoscopic display. A stereoscopic analog zoom controlled camera was also shown.
• Julien Flack from Dynamic Digital Depth (Perth, Australia) showed a prototype 3D mobile phone based on Ocuity’s polarization activated microlens display technology and running DDD’s mobile software solution for stereoscopic video, a 32’’ Olevia 3D HD TV made by Syntax-Brillian with Arisawa’s Xpol technology viewed with polarized 3D glasses, and Google Earth running in stereoscopic 3D using TriDef Visualizer for OpenGL Driver on a Sharp AL3D autostereoscopic laptop.
• Eun-Soo Kim and colleagues from the 3D Display Research Center (3DRC) at Kwangwoon University (Seoul, South Korea) showed information and videos about a range of 3D display prototypes developed at 3DRC.
• Joel Kollin from University of Washington (Seattle, Washington) and Ari Hollander from Imprint Interactive Technology (Seattle, Washington) showed a digital stereoscope system based on two LCD panels and mirrors with a VR demonstration application.
• Steve Mason from Yavapai College (Prescott, Arizona) exhibited a large selection of artwork intended to be viewed using Chromadepth 3D glasses.

In addition, in the exhibit area the 3D Consortium showcased stereoscopic products from 3D Consortium member companies. David Mark from Mark Resources (San Francisco, California) demonstrated a 22” LCD autostereoscopic display monitor with 3840×2400 pixel resolution fitted with a diagonal parallax barrier creating 7 views for 3D viewing, and a 60” diagonal full-color 3D backlit transparency print with 30k×40k resolution showing a collection of fluorescent minerals. For3D (Santa Rosa, California) showed three stereoscopic monitors from Pavonine (Incheon, South Korea).

Pictures of the demonstrations listed above are available on the conference website: www.stereoscopic.org

In parallel with the demonstration session, the 14 SD&A conference poster authors presented their posters in the symposium-wide poster session. The full papers from the poster session are also contained in this proceedings volume.

On Tuesday and Wednesday a Phantogram Exhibit was on display in the main exhibit area. This was organized as a special event of both the Electronic Imaging Symposium and the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference. As in previous years, the phantogram exhibit was coordinated by Terry Wilson. It included works from the following authors and artists: Terry Wilson (USA), Achim Bahr (Germany), Gilbert Detillieux (Canada), Anthony Karger (UK), Faramarz Ghahremanifar (Iran), John Ballou (USA), and Sam Paechter (USA).

The third day of the SD&A conference included three technical sessions on: Crosstalk in Stereoscopic and Autostereoscopic Displays (chaired by Neil Dodgson), Stereoscopic Video (chaired by Nick Holliman), and Integral 3D Displays (chaired by Nick Holliman). Again, the papers from these technical sessions are contained in this proceedings volume.

The special events on this third and final day were the discussion forum and the keynote presentation.

This year’s discussion forum, “3D in the Home: How Close are We?”, was framed with the provocative question: 3D in the home is a dream shared by many. To achieve it we need compelling content, simple distribution, great displays, and affordable prices. How close are we to achieving these goals?

The final highlight of this year’s Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference was the Keynote Presentation, “A Look at the Past and Future of Stereoscopic Displays Through a ‘(Liquid) Crystal Ball’,” presented by James Fergason, of Fergason Patent Properties.

Both the discussion forum and keynote presentation were recorded and will be made available via the conference website: www.stereoscopic.org

Acknowledgments

Many individuals and companies contributed in various ways to make this year’s SD&A conference a very successful meeting:

• This year’s conference was formally sponsored by REAL D (Beverley Hills, California), MacNaughton, Inc. (Beaverton, Oregon), IMAX Corporation (Mississauga, Canada), and NVIDIA Corporation (Santa Clara, California). Conference sponsorship is a very valuable way for companies to support the running of the conference and to gain marketing exposure. All of these companies are at the forefront of stereoscopic developments and we thank them for their support.

• We also appreciate the support of this year’s stereoscopic projection sponsors: JVC North America R&D Center (Cypress, California), Christie Digital (Cypress, California), Colorlink (Boulder, Colorado), and DepthQ (Bellevue, Washington). The ability to present high-quality large-screen stereoscopic images and video at the conference is an extremely important part of the conference. This year’s setup was again a feast for both eyes. JVC provided a high-definition 1080P stereoscopic projection system based on a pair of JVC DLA-HD2K-SYS LCoS projectors (which natively output left-handed and right-handed circular polarization from each projector) and an 8’×4.5’ rear-projection screen. Christie Digital provided a Christie Mirage S+4K 3-chip DLP projector, which has a native resolution of 1400×1050 pixels and is capable of frame-sequential stereo at up to 120Hz. Colorlink provided their new ALPS polarization modulator, which was fitted to the front of the Christie projector to allow the high quality stereoscopic images from the Christie projector to be viewed passively, using circularly polarized 3D glasses. DepthQ provided a pair of DepthQ media servers (one for each stereoscopic projection system) that were used for playback of all of the stereoscopic video content shown during the 3D Theatre and also many other times during the conference. Particular thanks go to Chris Ward and Dan Lawrence from DepthQ, Rod Sterling and Rob Buddle from JVC, Wayne Bickley and Frank Hepburn from Christie Digital, and John Korah and Mike Robinson from Colorlink.

• Other equipment used as part of the conference’s AV setup included: 3D demultiplexer, 3D Scan Doubler, and DVD player (provided by Nelsonex); 8×6- foot stereoscopic rear-projection screen (provided by Kerner Optical); ImageTek 3D Scan Doubler (provided by Curtin University); and a suite of Mackie sound mixers and general AV equipment (provided by Spectrum Audio Visual). We should also say a special thanks to Kerner Optical who came to our rescue at short notice and lent us a rear-projection screen when Brad Nelson’s screen was misrouted between New York and California.

• Our AV setup is not something you will see at the average conference. We particularly appreciate the support of Brad Nelson (Kerner Optical), who helped to keep all the equipment in working order, and Stephan Keith (SRK Graphics Research) and Mikayla who helped meet the AV needs of all of our presenters.

• The conference committee plays an important role throughout the year, ensuring the correct technical direction of the meeting. Sincere thanks go to Gregg Favalora, Nick Holliman, Janusz Konrad, Shojiro Nagata, Steven L. Smith, Vivian Walworth, and Michael Weissman.

• Thanks to the demonstration session presenters for bringing equipment to show. Some equipment traveled from overseas, making the contribution to the meeting particularly praiseworthy.

• Thanks also to the staff at IS&T and SPIE, who were instrumental in helping organize the meeting.

• Most importantly, we must thank the conference authors and attendees, who ultimately made this meeting such a successful event.

Prizes

This year three prizes were offered for “the best use of stereoscopic presentation tools during the conference technical sessions”. The prizes were copies of the field-sequential 3D DVD “Up Denali 3D” by Tom Riederer from Tree-D Films (www.treeDFilms.com). The three winners were:
• Kevin Gilson from Parsons Brinckerhoff for his presentation “Stereoscopic applications for design visualization.” Kevin’s presentation used a full suite of stereoscopic presentation tools: stereoscopic video, stereoscopic stills, polarized and anaglyph.
• Jeff Dammann from Army Research Lab for his presentation “A novel technique for visualizing high-resolution 3D terrain maps.” Jeff’s presentation included a demonstration of his new 3D terrain visualization technique using a LIDAR dataset of Washington DC and was viewed in polarized 3D on one of the conference’s stereoscopic rear-projection screens.
• Peter Wimmer from 3DTV.AT for his presentation “DV tape drive synchronization for immediate preview of dual camera recordings.” Peter’s presentation included a live demo of the video recordings from a pair of HDV camcorders being synchronized through a PC running ‘stereoscopic multiplexer’ and displayed in anaglyph format on the conference’s projection system.

For more information

Conference activities do not stop at the end of the January meeting. The SD&A conference website provides a focus for conference activities during the time between conferences. We will be seeking abstracts for the 2008 conference in April through June. You can join the conference mailing list to receive conference announcements — just visit the conference website for details. The SD&A conference website provides a focal point for many activities and provides a timetable for important meeting deadlines. It has an extensive collection of photographs highlighting the activities of past conferences. In addition the website hosts the stereoscopic virtual library, which contains four historically important books that have been digitized, in full, into pdf format, and are available for free download. Visit the website to gain an understanding of the past, present, and future of stereoscopic imaging and, most of all, think now about presenting a paper or attending next year’s conference. The Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference website is at www.stereoscopic.org

The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality XIV

This year’s Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality conference had two main thrusts. One, technical, considered systems and approaches for creating and experiencing virtual worlds; and the other explored the interplay between engineering and the aesthetics of virtual world design.

The symposium plenary session started things on a high. Eric de Jong, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talked about “Space Exploration, Imaging Technology, and the Development of a Virtual Presence in Space.” The morning session followed immediately after this. The first paper, presented by Massimo Sabbatini from the European Space Agency, discussed their efforts in getting hand-held stereo cameras up into the space station and explored the requirements for designing and placing equipment of that nature in such a unique environment. The second paper, given by Jason Jerald, was based on research at UNC. He described an interesting approach for reducing the perceived latency in VR environments using a real-time gyroscope for tracking heading in conjunction with over-rendering the scene and then selecting “the best” part of each scanline to show as the image is scanned out to the display. Aria Hotta of Toshiba presented the next paper in the sequence, describing their approach to creating a personal dome type display. The display employs one of the new LED projectors, a wide field of view lens, and an approach for improving the perceived resolution. Aria Hota brought the system with her from Japan and gave demonstrations on Tuesday evening. We thank her for her heroic efforts. The final paper in the first session, presented by Stefan Winkler from the National University of Singapore, offered an approach for interacting with virtual objects using spatial hand gestures and camera-based tracking.

The second session consisted of three papers exploring the more experiential aspects of creating virtual environments and as it happened, all three in this session were from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The first, presented by Daria Tsoupikova, explained the inspiration and mechanics behind the development of an upcoming virtual world exploring a group of religious buildings called “Kizhi” on an island in a lake in Russia. The second paper, presented by Brenda López Silva, developed an artistic approach inspired by biological processes to present bandwidth and usage statistics for a unique large scale display at UIUC. The final paper, presented by Helen-Nicole Kostis, showed a virtual world exploring the nature and textures of skin; an interesting engineering aspect of this work was that the experience was based on manipulating stereo HD video footage rather than a modeled and textured approach. This work was shown in a gallery setting in Chicago.

The session chairs would like to thank those who submitted work to this year’s conference and especially those who came and presented their interesting work.

Looking ahead

Next year the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference and The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality conference will be held in the period 27– 31 January 2008, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, California, as part of the 2008 IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology Symposium. The Photonics West symposium will be held the week before, also at the San Jose Convention Center. The 2008 conferences promise to continue a tradition of presenting and demonstrating the latest technologies relevant to stereoscopic displays and virtual reality. Please consider attending, presenting, or demonstrating at the 2008 Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference and The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality conference. We hope to see you there!

Andrew J. Woods
Mark T. Bolas
Neil A. Dodgson
Ian E. McDowall
John O. Merritt