iPhone 4 gets new 3D viewer
Apple has shied away from 3D but a new third party device will allow owners to view stereoscopic 3D video and images on their iPhone 4.
The Japanese iPhone 3D Director Viewer is based on the principles of the Victorian 3D Stereoscopes where two angled lenses direct light from two images to each eye. It is also how the TomyTronic 3D projected gamers into the third dimension in the 1980s.
The iPhone slots into the back of the device and the when the iPhone is displaying 3D content such as YouTube 3D, the user will see a stereoscopic image through the binocular style gadget. The iPhone 3D Director Viewer is only available in Japan for the equivalent for about £18.
Hasbro launched an iPhone 3D viewer last year. The MY3D device simply snaps onto an iPhone and uses specially-formatted MY3D apps available from the iTunes App Store. A more advanced version of what is described above, the MY3D allowed people to look around 360 degrees, virtual reality style by using the iPhone and iPod’s gyroscope. For example, in MY3D 360° Sharks, you are a diver in an underwater shark cage and can look and follow the sharks as they swim around you 360 degrees.
For people who don’t mind a bit of DIY there is also the FOV2GO – a portable fold-out iPhone and Android viewer that turns a smartphone screen into a 3D virtual reality system.
Did you know?
Charles Wheatstone was one of Britain’s most prolific inventors, he gave us the telegraph, the concertina and for electricians the Wheatstone bridge, but perhaps his greatest gift to us all was giving birth to 3D when in 1838 he invented the stereoscope. Wheatstone drew two pictures, flat representations of a geometrically shaped object viewed from two slightly different angles. He then put them in his stereoscope and ingeniously arranged two 45 degree mirrors to ensure that each picture was presented to the relevant eye. Looking into the device, sure enough the 2 flat pictures correlate into one beautiful stereo image, showing the appearance of the object in 3 dimensions, very much like the real thing.
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