Video with Depth 110
Lifewolf writes: "A new technology from 3DV Systems uses pulsed infrared illumination to capture depth information for every pixel of a video stream. This allows for neat tricks like realtime keying without need for color backgrounds. JVC is already selling a product based on this, the ZCAM."
What's so difficult? (Score:2, Interesting)
Humans have 2 eyes in the front of their heads, inches apart. All that is needed in a camera is for two syncronized tapes to run simultaneously, with the lenses just a few inches apart.
Playback the left half on the left eye, the right half on the right eye, and our own built-in systems have no problem building those two images into a single 3D image.
I think the difficulty is not in the recording of 3D information, but of building a display to play it back to multiple people.
This will revolutionize color keying. (Score:5, Interesting)
with this new technology, however, you could film an actor just about anywhere with very little preperation, and key him/her out based on depth AND color (some situations may need both), and easily pop new things both in front and behind the actor. It could save movie studios a lot of time, effort, and money for doing special effects, especially after you consider how easily it would be to generate a virtual stunt double from the 3d mesh (film the actor from a few angles, and merge the resulting 3d wireframe. Voila, perfect model down to the wrinkles in the skin)
Re:Twofold problem (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but what most people don't realize is that we see just as much depth in a TV screen, as we would in real life if we covered one eye.
Speaking of complex problems... There are certain devices that, when placed over your eyes, will essentially trick your eyes into seeing the depth on a flat screen, so there is quite a lot of information saved on a 2D image. The strange thing is that computer generated images are still seen as flat, while the rest has depth. What is different in the two is a mystery, but it just goes to show that our minds are privy to much more information than we are consciously aware of. (Have you ever seen a movie which used special effects and it just didn't seem right, even through you couldn't point out any real problem?)
Forger's wonder tool (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO, this technology would rather do the contrary. It makes photo forgeries so damn easy: no afternoon-long sessions with the gimp to get exact contours of people to delete from or insert into picutres: just use the ZCAM's distance keying and you get instant masks. The example given was scary: a business meeting, from which they could edit out people at will. The ideal tool for anybody that wants to rewrite history. So, forget about photos staying admissible as evidence in court.
Re:Modeling applications? (Score:2, Interesting)
This system could probably be used for modeling by placing a physical model on a turntable and recording its changing z-depth over time. I wonder how accurate it is at close range. This could be really useful for architects who want to develop a 3D site plan. Simply snap a few shots at the building site, construct a DXF file based on the depth information, and import it into your CAD software.
The camera is probably intended for use with compositing applications like Shake, which can process z-depth information, as well as RGB, and alpha. Great for seamlessly integrating live action with computer generated 3D, particularly realtime 3D
This also poses the question: what other types of useful information can a digital camera acquire, if we are not limited to the visual spectrum? Would it be possible to extract diffuse color, reflected color, transparency, or other "ray depth" information from real life subjects?
Still? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Benjamin Coates
Re:What this gives you (Score:2, Interesting)
From there you probably can move on to the more sophisticated compression techniques
(soon to be) intruduced my MPEG-4.
Ever seen the move "Enemy of the state" where they triangulate 3D shapes with satellites
and movements? Great techniques in that movie, but scary scenario.
Visual Effects work (Score:2, Interesting)
I posted a comment [slashdot.org] a while ago that explained the uses in visual effects work for depth-cameras, and some of the problems with existing methods of pulling a matte off of live action plates...
We were actually talking about this at work the other day; mainly wondering how well it would deal with things like fine hair, smoke, transparent objects and stuff like film grain/video artifacts/lens artifacts etc...
Would love to try one and find out...
Re:Twofold problem (Score:2, Interesting)
It may seem that I am splitting hairs here, but I get very frustrated when people think that having one eye covered eliminates all depth perception. That is a catagorically wrong assertion since the retina in each eye occupies a three-dimensional space. People who have lost an eye encounter problems with depth preception, but do not lack the *ability* to precieve depth.
If you pay close attention to any stereoscopic image, whether it is a "magic eye" or a viewmaster you will notice that things are collected into two-dimensional sheets that appear to have depth relative to eachother. A similar situation in real life would be if everything was either a backdrop or a cardboard cutout.
By contrast the image displayed in a hologram presents an integral depth of the surface that is preceptible by a single human eye. It looks *real* becuase it is exactly the same 3-dimensional wavefront that existed when light was bouncing off the object to record the hologram.
It is all a little confusing, but a little thought and casual observation will reveal these things to you. In my case I spent three-months interning in a holograpy studio in NYC, so I got to hear many interesting discussions on this and various other strange concepts of reality.
So please peole, paralax does not mean the same thing as depth. If anything, please take that away from this thread.