Apple has filed a patent application for a “Three-dimensional Display System,” the United States Patent Office revealed today.
Apple’s Abstract:
A three-dimensional display system provides a projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function. Three-dimensional images are respectively modulated in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to define a programmable mirror with a programmable deflection angle.
Claims include:
A three-dimensional display system, comprising:providing a projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function;determining the left and right eye locations of at least one observer;projecting left and right three-dimensional sub-images toward the projection screen; andmodulating the sub-images respectively in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to respectively direct the left and right sub-images substantially exclusively to the respective left and right eye locations.
A three-dimensional display system, comprising:providing a projection screen having a spatial filter defining a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function;determining the left and right eye locations of at least one observer substantially facing and in proximity with the projection screen;projecting left and right sub-images of a three-dimensional image toward the projection screen; andangularly and intensity modulating the left and right sub-images respectively in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to define respective discrete light paths that respectively direct the left and right sub-images to reflect from the projection screen substantially exclusively to the respective left and right eye locations to provide a three-dimensional viewing experience.
Descriptions include:
Although much more realistic, a dynamically presented holographic image also requires far greater computational ability and bandwidth than is generally required for a two-view stereo display. Effective means are also noticeably wanting for dynamically recreating the original wavefront, or an acceptable facsimile thereof, in real time and at commercially acceptable costs. Thus, a need still remains for highly effective, practical, efficient, uncomplicated, and inexpensive autostereoscopic 3D displays that allow the observer complete and unencumbered freedom of movement. Additionally, a need continues to exist for practical autostereoscopic 3D displays that provide a true parallax experience in both the vertical as well as the horizontal movement directions.
The patent app was originally filed on September 20, 2006.
Full patent application filing here.
I want one!
I don’t care how big it is or how much it costs – I want one!!
I’ll mortgage my house, my wife & my grandkids to do it, but I WANT ONE!!!!
Apple, Inc.: still dead serious, and running away with the future as fast as they can. The rest of the industry is still trying to get outa the gate!
New cinema displays coming on Tuesday!
Too bad this wouldn’t do me any good since I can only see through one eye at a time.
As my uncle Victor Meldrew would say, “Unbelievable!”
Imagine a pair of glasses (or something more elegant) that plugged in to you iPhone. When you open the Map program, you input the location of where you want to go, and instantly, you get a HUD showing a big arrow saying “go that way!” and a floating marker in space above your destination.
Or how about a locator for the person you are talking to.
Or maybe a rendering of a building that you could peel back the layers of.
Or an interactive FPS game that you could play out in a big field, with 3D enemies running around to shoot at.
Or a flight simulator.
Or a photo editing app that floated images in space in front of you, editable with your fingers.
So, Apple is making Star Wars and Star Trek a reality for us all. Can’t wait for the transporter to be made available.
Ooops, there goes the auto industry and our problem with oil disappears.
I want one too! …whatever it is.
@C1
I think you have a couple/three patents there… better get on it quick.
“Imagine a pair of glasses (or something more elegant) that plugged in to you iPhone.”
Or go the Carlos Castaneda route, eat some peyote and become the iPhone.
KEWWWWLLLL!!!
@ChrissyOne,
Imagine if they had real time satellite imagery! You see Paris Hilton’s cootch when she gets out of a car anywhere on the planet.
@ChrissyOne
I hope that comes with an iVomit bag – for when all that cross-eyed interaction begins to take its inevitable toll on the user. The main reason these things have never caught on, even though the tech has been around for donkey’s years.
I wonder if it inverts if you turn your head upside down.
Holography perfectly compliments Apple’s vaporware.
Meanwhile Microsoft extends its lead by shipping REAL products today that people can actually use like Vista and Zune.
Your potential. Our passion.™
some patent images here, here and here.
Will the screen be glossy? :ducks:
The projection screen has got to be crucial to this invention. What kind of material would allow for infinitely programmable angles from any direction simultaneously? Perhaps a reflective liquid with modulated ripples? We don’t know what magical mojo they’ve created but it will surely be amazing whatever it is. Can’t wait!!
@ Twenty Benson
Aw, I think you’ve just seen The Jerk one too many times. I don’t think these problems are insurmountable, they just haven’t been given enough attention yet, mostly because prior implementations of 3D interactivity have been cumbersome and kind of dorky. Get it down to a sleek pair of glasses that you can see though, yet can be made opaque to overlay HUD elements, and you have the next revolution in I/O.
If any company can do this, it sure ain’t Microsoft.
The porn industry will probably be *visibly excited* by the idea of 3D screens.
Next year Apple is patenting the Flux Capacitor.
It’ll be an accessory for Apple’s Time Machine.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
@auren: So, Apple is making Star Wars and Star Trek a reality for us all. Can’t wait for the transporter to be made available. Ooops, there goes the auto industry and our problem with oil disappears.
We’ve had transporter technology for decades now; who do you think is keeping it suppressed???
gotta love it when idiots like Benson who have no clue what they’re talking about come on and talk like they’re pro’s. The Apple projection system projects a different image to each eye (no strain on the eyes), and it also track where you are in the room – and it works for multiple users.
@The Other Steve
The Vulcan Science Ministry has found that time travel is impossible.
“Aw, I think you’ve just seen The Jerk one too many times.”
The Opti-Grab is nothing compared to the
” rel=”nofollow”>Ludovico technique.
@ G Spank: he was talking about C1’s glasses, not Apples display. And he’s right: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/9_8/9026-1.html.
(BTW, plurals are not made using apostrophes.)
(and of course, I go and make a possessive <i>without</a> an apostrophe.)
Stupid link.
Ludovico technique
@ ZuneTang
I agree… Vista is a shipping product developed to satisfy the wants and needs of the S&M;crowd. Very successful too! Should come with a set of those little clamps in the boxed ultimate/submit version!
I was excited about iChat maybe coming to AppleTV, this could take iChat to a whole new level
imagine sitting across the living room visiting with far off family/friends in 3D !
Sorry Apple, the Japanese already have an 3D LCD Color Monitor that provides a stereoscopic display.
http://www.physorg.com/news204.html
But Name, is the Japanese 3D TV ‘snappy’???
And once they Ben Affleck’s memory, M$ will have a 3D display too.
Just my $0.02
To Name:
“Published: 14:01 EST, June 18, 2004”
“Sharp Introduces 3D LCD Color Monitor that provides a stereoscopic display”
Couldn’t you say that was so four years ago? You would think it would be mass marketed by now. If it worked.
Although, a Pikachu vs. Hello Kitty caged death match in 3D would make for a cool demo. I’ve got five big ones on Pikachu.
I’ll wait until Apple comes out with the whole shebang…the holodeck. Until then, I will continue to use my x-ray glasses I got as a kid for excitement.
BTW…what is the origin of the word shebang anyway?
o…i WANT ONE!. ….!!!!!!!!!!
The secret is out!, Steve Jobs has a time machine !
I knew this was coming.
But no specs needed purleeze.
And the porn merchants will be pleased
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Etymology of “shebang”
Origin proposed: Known to go back at least to year 1862 (Walt Whitman), shebang is suspected to originate from the French word char-a-banc, which was a bus-like wagon with a lot of seats, but no specific connection has been proven as of now. Later, Mark Twain used it to describe a vehicle, as well as “any matter of present concern”.
(source: wiktionary)
How does this compare to the M$ Big Ass Table?
The 3G iPhone display!
Steve, you sly dog.
Geez! Microsoft’s best effort is their Big Ass Table (
). And then Apple pulls out a holographic display! It seems Microsoft are Morlocks and Apple are the Eloi here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine). The analogy works all the way to the underhanded way Microshaft has gone around trying to destroy competition.
Apple is so damn cool. Microsoft is so much a bunch of shmucks.
Why do I think that this is just Apples way of getting back at the patent office?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I read the patent and it is so vague that you could argue pretty much any invention that produced a 3 d like image could be covered by this patent.
I think its an early April 1st. . . . . . . And if the patent office grants it, then Apple could own any new 3D services.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
I read it too and that was my very first reaction. But if you read claim #1, they are quite specific about the technique that must be employed.
I hope there are more specifics than show here. It is too nebulous to stand as a patent. It seems only to say that it would be hard to do and the technology doesn’t now exist. “Effective means are also noticeably wanting…” Hopefully, the rest of the filing describes how they actually have the technology, not merely the idea. I don’t even find the first part adequately detailed to understand what they are doing or trying to actually patent. Maybe just a problem in the summary here.
And, yes, I REALLY want new displays!
@ Woody
That article is all well and good but is mostly coming at the issue from a *potential* product liability standpoint, and goes on and on and on about the Potential Dangers™, but doesn’t really provide much meat. Head lice? Come on, have a little vision.
To wit: “Other potential (and mostly unproven) potential problems include radiation emissions from head-display mounted devices in close contact with the eye.”
This is completely irrelevant to what I’m talking about. My contention is that the technology for this to work does not yet exist, because, if Apple builds it, they certainly won’t ask you to put on a frikin’ crash helmet for the love ‘a Pete.
The article continues: “The main downside to virtual reality is this: the body tries to coordinate visual and inertial inputs. Combining signals from the eyes and various other body endorgans — specialized structures at the end of nerve fibers having a sensory function — allows an individual to maintain a sense of equilibrium. Throw the two out of sync — or any set of sensory inputs, for that matter — and the body begins to display characteristic symptoms.”
And this is where the elegance comes in. I don’t think such a system should be Reality Exclusive. I don’t want a screen that blocks out the world and creates a new one that is slightly out of sync with my inner ear. What I’m talking about is more like a 3D HUD, that uses motion sensing and GPS to overlay elements onto my actual view of the real world. My inner ear agrees with my eyes, and the rest of my body. The only thing that the machine draws in is the Covenant Soldier charging me with a missile launcher. And or course, the missile. I run, and the machine moves what it needs to move to make the virtual elements agree with real space.
“For example, the appearance of movement — seeing a road coming at you 100 miles per hour — should be accompanied by the forces of inertia that act on a body moving at such a speed. Naturally, virtual reality can’t transport a body at 100 miles per hour; it can only maintain the illusion of doing so.”
Again, that’s not what I’m talking about, and while that problem “may be unsolvable”, it’s really irrelevant to the whole idea.
It is still correct to use an apostrophe to make a plural of lowercase letters. It is also still a correct option to make a plural of abbreviations and numbers using an apostrophe. I had two tv’s in the ’60’s but no DVD’s or cd’s — so mind your p’s and q’s.
Not holographic, stereoscopic.
-jcr
I always joked that Apple would make a “holographic” display. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’s pretty funny that Apple files a patent like this… Now, I actually believe Apple will one day create a real holographic display.
Thanks Ampar. I thought it was a derogatory term for a woman driver or a woman of loose moral fiber.
we’ve been waiting for a long time for holographic displays to become a reality and mass manufactured… so far no one can produce it, to the point it’s usable.
if anyone is going to do it, it’s Apple… just like the multitouch, i thought I had to wait 10 years. But no, apple did it with the iPhone and iPod touch
@ChrissyOne
If you want your soldier to appear at an appropriate distance from you (ie not a blur half an inch in front of your eyes), then you have to fool your eyes into seeing this. Stereoscopy works by sending a different image to each eye – usually of the same object from a slightly different angle (the difference equalling the width between the human eyes) and relying on a lens to make the image in-focus at such close quarters. The brain receives these data and naturally works to successfully merge the two images together into the appearance of a 3D object. In doing so, the brain becomes disorientated after a short time because it is processing a conflicting collection of signals about the environment it is in (the muscular work the eye is engaged in does not match with other signals received by the brain) – leading to nausea.
This technology has been around almost as long a photography itself and was used extensively in the second world war for ariel reconnaissance. In fact the Mars space missions are using it today and if you go to the NASA sight they provide a large series of stereoscopic photos of the planet surface. Remarkably, you don’t really need the glasses to fool your eyes into merging these images into a 3d effect. If you line them up in the right way and concentrate ‘through’ the image into the mid-distance, your brain merges them into a 3d image (amazing… you’re on Mars!!). Its exactly the same ‘fooling’ process used with those ‘stippled-data’ posters in fashion a decade or to ago. Do it too long though, and that sickly dizziness sets in.
Here’s the patent drawings:
Because such a thing already exists…
http://www.dti3d.com/