World’s First Glasses Free 3D Link Between London & Russia

During Ravensbourne’s sold out 3D Storytelling Event, glasses free 3D specialists Triaxes & Dimenco will be conducting a world first – a live glasses free 3D conference between the UK & Russia.

After months of planning, attendees to the Advanced Screen Tech and Vision Perception talk (part hosted by 3dfocus.co.uk) in room 211, will witness and participate in a unique interactive session with delegates at Tomsk Polytechnic University. 3D Storytelling guests will be able to see and talk to selected participants in Russia, thousands of miles away in 3D without glasses, as if looking through a futuristic portal that bends space and time (well Tomsk is seven hours ahead!).

The groundbreaking event has been made possible by many hours of hard work, a culmination of several technologies created by the R&D teams of Dimenco and Triaxes and a collaborative partnership between Ravensbourne and 3D Focus.

The event has posed a number of challenges…

- How to generate a 3D format viewable on a Dimenco glasses free 3D lenticular screen.
- How to create 28 viewpoints from a stereo pair in real time.
- How to transmit the multi-view stream in two directions, over a regular IP connection and at a high enough quality.

Current 3D is filmed with two cameras but for glasses free 3D technology, at least 8 positions are required. In the case of the Ravensbourne 3D Storytelling event, 28 views are required due to the use of a Dimenco screen. Dimenco screens offer a wide viewing angle, 28 viewing angles and minimum ‘cone jumping’ so were recommended for the event by 3D Focus suitable for groups of people.

Of course, filming with 8 or 28 cameras is not practical (or cheap!) so the Triaxes NetJet solution will be utilised to convert the stereo pair images into multiple views (or n-view) in real time so people in the audiences will not struggle to find a ‘sweet spot’.

The Tomsk, Russia based company (part of the Elecard group) has been working on glasses free 3D solutions for over 13 years and have achieved an impressive solution by using two depth maps and proprietary algorithms in both their DepthGate software (for post conversion) and NetJet software (for real time conversion). After comparing the market, 3D Focus selected Triaxes to supply the technical expertise and hardware/software solutions for this historic 3D event, which is hoped to inspire future glasses free 3D applications.

Ravensbourne will be using a 3D Factory beam splitter rig and two Panasonic P2HD cameras to provide live 3D images from London. On the Tomsk side, a Panasonic 3DA1 camera will be used, allowing the camera to be moved around the room.  Two 28 view 42” Dimenco autostereoscopic screens have been installed both sides for the two way event.

During the telepresence special, 3D Focus will interact with the Triaxes team at Tomsk University to discover more about how the technology works. The Director of Tomsk University will briefly explain what innovations the University has been working on followed by glasses free 3D video presentation of the university’s innovative projects, prepared by TPU scientific 3D modeling laboratory.

This will be followed by an opportunity for both sides to ask each other questions about the Russian and UK media industry as well as discussing what, if anything, glasses free 3D brings to video conferencing.

Interacting with other people in 3D and without glasses over such long distances will be a unique experience for most people. Early tests have proved to be very impressive and even quite surreal – it really has to be seen to be believed.

“This technology could be used for videoconferencing in a wide range of applications: education, business meetings and negotiations, special affairs (medicine – surgery consultancy, technical – mechanics consultancy, etc.). In future, when AS devices will be widespread, we expect this technology to be used in broadcasting as well.” said Alexey Polyakov, Founder and CEO of Triaxes.

When we asked Alexey what he was hoping to achieve from the event, he replied “This will be the first time our system has been shown in the UK. We have experienced a strong interest from the UK for all our 3D products. Moreover, we are looking forward to a strong partnership with Ravensbourne in education and a technology development field.”

Carrie Wootten, Head of Enterprise and Innovation and Co-Director, 3D Storytelling added "'I am delighted that Ravensbourne is partnering with Tomsk University at this year's 3D Storytelling event. The live 3D autostereoscopic link-up between the two countries is really exciting. The technology provided by Dimenco and Triaxes is a great addition to our conference this year and I am really looking forward to seeing the reaction of our delegates to this glasses-free screen.' 

3D Storytelling attendees can be the first in the world to witness the historic event by attending the 'Advanced Screen Tech and Vision Perception' session at 10.45am in Room 211. For more information about 3D Storytelling visit www.3dstorytelling.co.uk

If you are interested in glasses free 3D, what its future applications are or are simply curious, it will be worth a visit.

For more information about Triaxes visit www.triaxes.tv/uk

 THE SET UP 

The glasses free 3D teleconference will be based on the Triaxes NetJet system. At the Tomsk side, there will be an integrated 3D camera, PC with NetJet software installed,  Triaxes 3D Media Player (STB) and Dimenco ASD at both ends. The camera will deliver a side-by-side video stream to the PC, where it would be analysed, converted into a glasses-free 3D format, and broadcasted via IP in real time to London where another Triaxes 3D Media Player receives the stream and displays it on the Dimenco autostereo screen.

 TRIAXES PROMO VIDEO 

WHAT IS A DEPTH MAP?

A depth map contains the information where an element is in Z space – or depth. It is visualised as a 256 point greyscale image with absolute black being the furthest away and absolute white being the nearest (with 254 depth levels in-between). NetJet uses this information to render multiple view points on the screen. 

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