1885 Graham Bell Record Resurrected by 3D Camera
"Hear my voice... Alexander Graham Bell." said the inventor of the telephone more than a century in front of his cardboard and wax disc voice recorder on 15 April 1885 in Washington DC, USA. More than one century later, the badly damaged disc is unable to withstand a reading needle to play it back. But today's technology includes high-resolution 3D cameras able to recreate a full 3-dimensional model of the original disc, and simulation software able to put the virtual disc on a virtual turntable.
A close look at an experimental recording disc shows how it has become cracked over the course of 128 years.
The inscription in wax reads "Record made April 15, 1885, by AGB and CAB."
Hollywood Adopts "Three-view Stereoscopy"
At a press conference in Hollywood (CA,USA) on April 1st, 2013, all major studios announced their commitment to "3D of the future", a new way to shoot and project stereoscopic movie giving a better than ever depth feeling to the audience. Dubbed "Three-view Stereoscopy" and based on the well-know "triple-flash" method already in use, the new technology adds a center view to the usual left and right images commonly used for 3D movies display.
Manufacturers are already embrassing "three-view Stereoscopy" as seen in the picture below. Watch a 3-views stereoscopic movie sample and a press conference picture here under.
A new Trick for Pulfrich Stereoscopic 3D Video
What is the Pulfrich Effect?
The Pulfrich effect is a psycho-optical phenomenon that was documented by Carl Pulfrich in the early 20th century. It is due to the difference in the speed of perception according to an object’s luminosity. The Pulfrich effect is thus perceptible only in the case of moving objects. For example, look at the movement of a pendulum swinging from left to right. If you cover one eye with a piece of dark glass you will see the lateral swing seconded by a movement in depth, as if the pendulum were oscillating in a circle rather than a plane. The darker the filter, the more pronounced the effect becomes.
If the filter is over the left eye, the moving object seems to be in front of the plane of the screen if it moves to the left and behind the plane if it moves to the right. The explanation is simple: The presence of a dark filter over one eye produces a lag in the perception of the scene coming from this eye. The left eye thus sees the pendulum a split-second later, and that causes a horizontal disparity with respect to the right eye. The brain interprets this difference as an interocular parallax and deduces a depth proportionate to the speed and direction of the moving object. Motionless objects are not affected.
The new trick
As pulfrich glasses are not so common, Katsuhiko Inoue, a retired physicist from Osaka University, added red/cyan color correction to the popular Pulfrich video "Demonstration of the Pulfrich Effect: NC State Fair". Watch the result with your good old red/cyan glasses here under.
Keep an Eye on TrueVision 3D Surgical System
SFGate reports that professor Clement Tham (Hong-Kong), one of the most highly respected and innovative ophthalmological surgeons performed the first 3D “heads-up” cataract surgery in Asia using the TrueVision stereoscopic 3D Surgical System.
The first surgery, performed at the Hong Kong Eye Hospital, took place on December 12, 2012, and used the advanced TrueVision 3D Visualization and Guidance platform for high-definition, real-time, stereoscopic microsurgery.
Oops! I Swallowed a 3D Camera
A new technique developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to diagnose oesophagial cancer uses a minuscule 3D camera you can swallow with a glass of water.
Just about the size of a US penny, this tiny tethered camera can be lowered and raised in the patient’s esophagus to allow a complete stereoscopic 3D picture (and a full 3D CGI model) to be captured. Using optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI), the small camera is supplemented with an infrared beam to view the tissue. Spinning at twenty hertz, this hair-sized beam of light gives the doctor a 360° macroscopic view of the esophagus.
Best of all, this method doesn’t cause the patient pain, and can be accomplished in a few minutes without the need for intense training on the procedure. Watch the video here under.
