Computers

Sony's Spatial Reality Display: Responsive, no-glasses 3D on your desk

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A new kind of video display, allowing perspective-shifting 3D content viewing without the need for 3D glasses
Sony
A new kind of video display, allowing perspective-shifting 3D content viewing without the need for 3D glasses
Sony
The Spatial Reality Display looks like a regular screen when it's off, and a window into a 3D world when it's on
Sony

Sony has debuted a new kind of 3D monitor with its Spatial Reality Display, which tracks your eyes and shows a different dynamically-generated image for each eye to give you a small, single-viewer window into a three-dimensional world.

We've seen a few different ways to build 3D hologram-style images that let users move around to gain different perspectives on objects. Queensland company Euclideon makes responsive, multi-user 3D tables and arcade machines that track several pairs of frequency-separation crystal glasses to generate dynamically changing stereo images as you move around a space. South Australia's Voxon Photonics takes a different approach, building volumetric voxel-based images that are projected onto a rapidly oscillating screen to create a floating 3D image in the air.

Sony's new creation, the ELF-SR1, is more in line with the 3D dash displays we're starting to see in high-end cars. It uses a micro-optical lens over its 15.6-inch display to split an image into left-and right-eye perspectives. Then it uses a "high-speed vision sensor" to track your eye positions at millisecond frequency, so the display can generate a slightly different image for each.

The screen dynamically adapts the image in real time as you move around, allowing movements 25 degrees left and right, 20 degrees up and 40 degrees down at distances between 30-75 cm (12-30 in). And the effect is that you get a 3D image you can move around to get different views on.

The Spatial Reality Display looks like a regular screen when it's off, and a window into a 3D world when it's on
Sony

What's it good for? Well, filmmaking, game design, graphic design and engineering can all benefit from the ability to look at things from a dynamic and intuitive perspective. And certainly product design; anything where an end product can be previewed.

"At Volkswagen, we've been evaluating Sony's Spatial Reality Display from its early stages, and we see considerable usefulness and multiple applications throughout the ideation and design process, and even with training," commented Frantisek Zapletal, Virtual Engineering Lab US, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.

At this stage, it's compatible with Sony's own SDK, as well as Unity and Unreal Engine, making it accessible to or importable from a range of different 3D environments. It's not ready for prime time yet as a home display, partially due to lack of content and partially thanks to a US$4,999 price tag. Orders will open in November.

Check out a video below.

Source: Sony

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4 comments
WB
I have seen a 3d TV that doesnt need goggles 10 years in an adobe lab. Also the Hydrogen One phone from a few years ago had a full on 3d screen that's freaking amazing that didnt need any goggles.. except they did it all differently without the having to track some eyeballs...
East Coast
But the Hydrogen One phone’s 3D screen was garbage and thoroughly trashed by every single review. The phone was DOA. So there’s that.
guzmanchinky
Yeah I saw the phone in person and it looked terrible. This looks like the future, typical Sony.
HarryTC
I have owned a Sony 3D “Big screen”, was OK at best. Typically a “now and again” 3-D operation. The most significant problem I see is that the technology is coming from Sony, who seems to be fraught with issues. They have all but dropped out of Blu-ray player development, and that’s because they are having issues with 4K so they feel 8K is a problem. They sell a 8K flatscreen, but it earns lower ratings in its production and performance. This is unfortunate to me because I have been drawn to Sony for decades. But considering their competitors 8K Flatscreens receives better ratings I can understand them dropping out of the competition. For this reason, although I feel glass less 3D has a future, it’s not likely one with Sony.