[ Conference Panorama | Keynote | People | Equipment | 3D Cameras Everywhere | Awards | 3D Theatre | Lunch Time Discussion | Short Course ]

The photographs on this page illustrate various events and happenings at the 2009 Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference.

Conference Panorama

[1] This year's SD&A conference setup was huge, and the audience was big too. Here is a panorama of the conference room on the first day of the conference.

Keynote

This year's keynote presentation was by Lenny Lipton, CTO of Real D. Lenny gave an entertaining personal tour through the history of stereoscopic displays, and also provided some personal perspectives on his attendance at the SD&A conference over the 20 years.

[2,3] Pictured above are Leny Lipton during his keynote presentation.

[4] Pictured above is a panorama of the SD&A conference room taken during the keynote presentation .

[5] Andrew Woods (SD&A co-chair), Lenny Lipton (SD&A keynote 2009), John Merritt (SD&A co-chair), Nick Holliman (SD&A co-chair) and Ray Zone (SD&A's first keynote speaker - 1996) doing a 3D salute after Lenny's presentation.

People

[6,7] Above left: Andrew Woods (Curtin University) and Robert Neuman (Walt Disney Animation Studios).
Above right: Vivian Walworth (Jasper Associates) introduces Perry Hoberman (University of Southern California).

[8,9] Above left: Bart Barenbrug (Philips 3D Solutions).
Above right: Lawrence Kaufman (President, National Stereoscopic Association) and Samuel Zhou (IMAX Corporation) - judges of this year's 3D Theatre session.

[10,11] Above left: Ray Zone (The 3D Zone) and Vivian Walworth (Jasper Associates).
Above right: Gregg Favalora (Actuality Medical) and Stephan R. Keith (SRK Graphics Research).

[12,13] Above left: Luis Perez-Bayas (University of Geneva) chats with Jason Goodman (21st Century 3D).
Above right: SD&A conference audience.

[14,15] Above left: Ray Zone (The 3D Zone), Ian McDowall (Intuitive Surgical), Perry Hoberman (University of Southern California), Lenny Lipton (Real D), Lanny Smoot (Disney).
Above right: Atsushi Murakami (NHK Enterprises America) and Nagamitsu Endo (NHK Enterprises America).

[16,17] Above left: Andrew Woods (Curtin University), Suzanne Grinnan (Executive Director, IS&T), Jan Allebach (Purdue University).
Above right: Daniel Merritt (The Merritt Group), Mike Weissman (TrueVision Systems), Ethan Schur (TDVision Systems).

[18,19] Above left: Gregg Favalora, Henrik T. Wörden (Youth Research Center, Germany), Alexander Kreft (Youth Research Center, Germany).
Above right: Brad Nelson (Kerner Optical R&D), Wei Su (Intravista LLC).

[16,17] Above left: Dave Cook (NVIDIA), Michael McSorley (NVIDIA), Andrew Fear (NVIDIA).
Above right: Gregg Favalora, Alan Sullivan (Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs), David Mark (Mark Resources).

[16,17] Above left: Neil Dodgson (Cambridge University) congratulates John Merritt (The Merritt Group) on his promotion to SPIE Fellow status.

Equipment

The presentation of high-quality large-screen stereoscopic images and video at the conference is an extremely important part of the conference.

[18] This year we again had two sterepscopic rojection systems, as shown above, on the left using a single Christie projector with active polarisation modulator and on the right using two JVC projectors with passive polarisation. Many thanks to all the contributors (JVC, Christie Digital, DepthQ Stereoscopic, and Kerner Optical) who once again made this all possible.

[19,20] The single projector system, shown above, consisted of a Christie active polarisation modulator coupled to a Christie Mirage S+4K projector which rear projected a 4:3 aspect ratio image. The Christie Mirage S+4K 3-chip DLP projector used has a native resolution of 1400×1050 pixels and is capable of frame-sequential stereo at up to 120Hz. The Christie polarization modulator 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.

[21,22] The dual projector system, shown above, consisted of two JVC projectors with passive polarisers rear projecting a 16:9 Full-HD image. JVC generously provided a high-definition 1080P stereoscopic projection system based on a pair of JVC DLA-RS1 LCoS projectors (which output left-handed and right-handed circular polarization from each projector) and an 8'×4.5' rear-projection screen.

Other equipment used as part of the SD&A conference's 3D AV setup included: two DepthQ stereoscopic media servers (provided by DepthQ Stereoscopic - aka Lightspeed Design Group), 3D demultiplexer, DVD player and 8×6- foot stereoscopic rear-projection screen (provided by Kerner Optical); and a suite of Mackie sound mixers and general AV equipment (provided by Spectrum Audio Visual).

The setup of the two stereoscopic projection systems for the SD&A conference is a highly coordinated and smooth process due to the highly professional nature of all the providers involved. Particular thanks go to: Wayne Bickley from Christie Digital, Rod Sterling from JVC; Chris Ward, Dan Lawrence from DepthQ Stereoscopic, and Brad Nelson and David Mark from Kerner Optical.

[23,24] Above left: Michal Husak (GALI-3D) and Stephan Keith demonstrate how to view linearly polarised 3D images with a pair of circularly polarised 3D glasses.
Above right: Every year we order a large quanitity of custom printed circularly polarised 3D glasses and red/cyan anaglyph glasses for distribution and use during the conference.

3D Cameras Everywhere

There were many 3D cameras seen at the SD&A conference this year. Here's just a few that were caught in action.

[18,19] Above left: Luis Perez-Bayas with his camcorder stereo-pair. Above right: Sung Jung Lee (Pavonine) with his twin-rig.

[20,21] Above left: John Toeppen with his SDM powered Canon digital still stereo-pair.
Above right: Andrew Woods with an SDM powered Canon IXUS 860 stereo-pair and John Roll with his stereo-rig from Ekeren 3D.

Awards

A number of SD&A conference regulars received awards and acknowledgements at this year's SD&A conference.

[22] John Merritt received a Certificate of Appreciation from IS&T and SPIE for his 20 continuous years of chairing the SD&A conference.
Pictured here are Vivian Walworth, Jan Allebach, John Merritt, and Andrew Woods.

[23,24] Above left: John Merritt (right) receives SPIE Fellow membership status from Giordano Beretta (HP).
Above right: Vivian Walworth (right) receives the IS&T president's medal from IS&T President Eric Hanson (left) with Suzanne Grinnan assisting.

Prizes are offered at the conference to encourage and reward exemplary use of stereoscopy during the conference presentations.

[25,26] Above left: Justus Ilgner (Aachen University Hospital, Germany) received a prize for his presentation “From bench to bedside: stereoscopic imaging in experimental and clinical oncology” which included a very realistic (and gigantic, holodeck-esque stereoscopic) projection of inner-ear surgery. Above right: A very excited Ron Labbe (Studio 3D, USA) received a prize for his presentation “Publishing stereoscopic images”. The entire presentation consisted of polarized stereoscopic images which covered the history of stereoscopic images in the published form. In an interesting twist he also demonstrated both anaglyph and polarized 3D viewing methods on the same slide and showed an autostereogram in polarized stereo for those who have never been able to free-view them with their naked eyes. The prizes were specially autographed copies of the new book "Inventing the Movies – Hollywood’s epic battle between innovation and the status quo, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs" by Scott Kirsner - very kindly donated by the author.

Two best of show prizes were offered as part of the SD&A conference 3D Theatre session: Best of Show (Computer Graphics) - “Scaleable City” by Sheldon Brown, The Experimental Game Lab, CRCA, UCSD, and Best of Show (Live Action) - “Fireworks Symphony” by Takashi Sekitani, StereoEye (Japan). Each of the prize winners received a specially autographed copy of the new 3D book "In Your Face 3D" by Sports Illustrated photographer David Klutho and 3D artist Ron Labbe.  Congratulations to our 3D Theatre winners on their beautiful work.

3D Theatre

There was standing room only for this year's 3D Theatre - a 2 hour exploration of 3D videos and movies from around the world. A full listing of the 3D content shown is here.

[27] This shot of the 3D Theatre audience was taken just before the session started - the room got even fuller once the lights went down.

Lunch Time Discussion

During the SD&A conference several lunch-time round-table discussions were held. These were a chance for people to chat about various chosen 3D themes. Some of those who participated in the discussions were: Ray Zone, Perry Hoberman, John Roll, Bernard Mendiburu, Sebastian Sylwan, John Merritt, John Toeppen, Luis Perez-Bayas, Vivian Walworth, Samuel Zhou, Gregg Favalora, Mike Weissman, Julien Flack, and many more.

[28] Participants in Monday's lunch-time round-table discussion.

[29] Participants in Wednesday's lunch-time round-table discussion.

Short Course

The full-day short course "Stereoscopic Display Application Issues" is held the day before the SD&A conference. The course is conducted by John Merritt and Andrew Woods and is a very good way for individuals to quickly learn about what is important in this rapidly growing field. Further information on the short course is available here.

[30,31] Above left: John Merritt explains 3D concepts to the attendees. Above right: Andrew Woods and John Merritt during the short course.

All photographs © 2009 Andrew Woods, Ray Zone, Neil Dodgson, Stephan R. Keith, Bonnie Peterson, Abe Perlstein, Neil Schneider, or John Merritt as noted on the photographs.