ENLIGHTEN3D

By Joshua Koopferstock

After having done an initial walk-through of most of the show floor in days 1 and 2, the remaining time was left to go back and see the gadgets that were getting the most buzz.  Any time I had mentioned “3D” to someone at the show, I would consistently get the response “Have you seen the Panasonic theater?”.  I hadn’t.  So I went back on the last day to their booth and checked it out.

A small corner of the hockey-rink-sized Panasonic booth

If I wasn’t a believer in 3D displays before, consider me a convert now.  Seeing their 10-minute 3D demo on a 103″ Plasma TV using active shutter glasses, I was blown away.  In particular, they had clips of a Lakers basketball game and a football game that were truly amazing.  The Lakers game looked convincingly similar to what you see if you’re actually in the stands, except you have the advantage of the best seats provided by multiple cameras and professional production crews.

A crowd watching the first-ever NBA game broadcast in 3D, in Dallas.

The 3D clips of live sports and other events (such as concerts) really impressed me.  Movie theaters may be in a prime position to capitalize on these events, since the large screen + 3D gives a truly “immersive effect”, and having a crowd for these kinds of shows is a plus, too.  In what I’ve seen so far, 3D adds a lot to the feeling of immersion, and this effect grows exponentially as the display size increases.

They were playing this at the (I think) LG booth on a 3D display.  It was amazing.

Thus, small displays may not benefit significantly from 3D, but in the higher-end display market, 3D will make a big splash.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “percentage of field-of-view,” rather than big or small, since 3D gaming on a 20″ display, sitting up close, is quite convincing.  Either way, expect at-home 3D displays for movies and gaming to start making more buzz come fourth-quarter 2009, and especially approaching next Christmas season.

Overall, what impressed me most during CES was the same thing that struck me during day 1: how much people are excited about 3D.  Perhaps more than anything else, this is a great sign for the new generation of 3D entertainment.

By Joshua Koopferstock

To start off the day, I sat down with the folks from IZ3D, the company that is probably the closest to putting 3D monitors into the hands of gamers.  The company’s 22″ monitor is actually 2 layers of LCD, each with linear polarization to give a 3D effect when wearing off-the-shelf polarized glasses.  The monitor is already being sold at Fry’s Electronics and Microcenter, and they promise that we’ll see it at Best Buy “soon”.

At $399 and already in retail, this is the best bet for gamers who want to start playing in 3D today.  There is a already a long list of games that are compatible with the system, and the IZ3D monitor requires no special video card other than dual monitor output.

In the afternoon, I made my way to the Central Hall, where the home theater and display companies were showing off their wares.  And were they ever!  The big players like Samsung and Panasonic must have splurged on CES, since they each had booths the size of a small Wal-Mart.

I doubt that, outside of their factories, there have ever been so many flat panel displays in the same building at once.  Both the 3D displays and the Ultra High-Def displays (a prototype) at the Samsung booth were visually astounding.

I finished off the day looking over some of the newest camera technology at the Lumix and Canon booths.  Facial recognition has become common place in the last few years in still cameras, and Canon announced that in their Vixia videocam line, they will now have autofocus based on facial recognition as well, allowing you to focus on many faces, or the one of your choice (because YOUR kid is the star of the 8-9 year old soccer league).  Plus they had a sweet dance to tell you all about it.

By Joshua Koopferstock

Back in the hotel after day 1 at CES, and I am in awe.  This show is gigantic.  I’m pretty sure that if it was 3 weeks long, I still wouldn’t have seen all of the booths.  From a 3D industry perspective, I noticed one thing of interest today while walking the floor.  People are going crazy for 3D displays.  Absolutely crazy.

Vegas, baby!

Around nVidia’s booth where they were showing off a 3D gaming computer rig (and selling 3D shutter glasses for $199; I was tempted…), there was such a crowd of people I couldn’t even shove my way through the booth, and almost got bowled over in the process of trying.  At the DALITE booth, where they were promoting their projection screen that preserves polarization, I had to wait in line for a demo.  Of a projection screen company!  People (well, CES technology nerds, anyhow) are eating up the 3D home entertainment technology, and this is despite the fact that in many cases, it is not quite ready for prime-time.  The DALITE demo was neat, but I felt like I was looking at it cross-eyed for half the time (not the fault of the screen they were selling, but still).

A view of the show floor

I’m not sure if it’s a failing of the technology, or a lack of experience in using the tools in these nascent stages, but there is definite room for improvement.  The polarized glasses seem to especially require controlled viewing conditions (i.e. viewer’s position relative to the display) to work effectively.

That’s it for the quick day 1 report.  I’ll try to take more relevant pictures tomorrow; I spent most of the day with my jaw hanging open, and forgot to take out the camera for the blog.

By Joshua Koopferstock

2009 promises to be a formative year for 3D and Computer Vision. 3D films are getting all the press at the moment (see this excellent blog on 3D Movies), but this year should bring us much more than just a new dimension from Hollywood.

Just today, Apple announced at MacWorld that its new iPhoto program would have facial recognition built in, following Picasa’s lead of a few months back, and bringing yet another computer vision application to the masses.  Expect visual search to keep blossoming in 2009, with uses you may not have considered before.

In the next weeks and months, I will have many more posts on the innovative technologies that are going to shape our fields for 2009 and the years to come.  From computer vision research analysis to 3D film reviews to chipset technology, there is so much to write about, I’m having trouble containing myself and not going on for a few thousand words right here.

To begin an exciting 2009, I’ll be heading to CES later this week, so if you want to meet me there for a chat or a beer, just send me an e-mail.  Alternatively, you can look for me as I wander around; I’ll be the guy standing in front of the 3D displays, drooling.

Happy New Year to all of you!

by Joshua Koopferstock

Constructive 3D Furniture Demo from joshk on Vimeo.

Usability and time-to-learn are two big concerns with any web application.  For 3D applications, both of these factors have led to the downfall of some pretty innovative sites.

In the video above, I demonstrate how we use the Constructive technology to refurnish our own conference room in 3D without having to learn any new or foreign process. With a few points tagged in two pictures by an operator, Constructive understands the camera position, orientation, and focal length, allowing me to move around the 3D furniture along the floor with the correct perspective.  And since Constructive understands the relationship between the photos, moving a piece of furniture (or a French maid, as the case may be) in one photo will also move it with the correct perspective in any and all others.

This application also addresses the issue of scalability; by not requiring any highly trained or skilled work to be done, the simple manual tagging process can be cheaply outsourced or put “in the cloud” using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

I look forward to seeing innovative retailers using Computer Vision technology like Constructive to add a level personalization that doesn’t exist today.  Soon, we won’t have to try to imagine what our new room will look like; you will be able to perfect it before ever putting any money down, and even share your ideas with friends and family to get their thoughts too.  A mother knows best, right?

All 3D models used come from www.Presto3D.com

by Joshua Koopferstock

Unless you are Haley Joel Osment, odds are you possess 5 senses.  On this blog, we are focused on how computers can interpret one of those senses, vision.  It’s the field where we have our technical expertise, and where we believe we can make our biggest contribution to technological advancement (see our current R&D project to turn photos to 3D models).  However, in the same way that computer vision scientists are trying to help machines understand what they see, the researchers over at mufin are trying to teach computers how to hear.

mufin is an automated music recommendation system that takes a different, one could say more technical, approach to helping you find music that you like.  Services like Pandora and iTunes Genius use human expertise or song meta-data where mufin actually analyzes the audio content.  This is from the mufin website:

How does mufin work?

mufin knows the musical essence of millions of songs and connects those songs that have a similar essence. This essence consists of sound properties like tempo, instruments, sound density or harmony. Whether the music is well-known or not, which genre it belongs to, when it was released or where in the world it was made, plays no role when you discover music using mufin. What matters is the sound!

Much like those of us in Computer Vision, Computer Audition scientists sit at the meeting point between art and mathematics.  As effectively as Computer Audition algorithms can objectively break down music into a series of variables, it requires a subjective human to determine which combination of those variables implies a “similar” song.  It is this subjectivity that keeps both of our fields fascinating.

Though the early reviews of this site seem to be not entirely positive, the folks over at mufin already have my respect for taking a stab at a truly complex problem.  Whether mufin succeeds or not, I expect to see Computer Audition techniques applied in other music recommendation services in the future, though undoubtedly in combination with other, more manual, techniques rather than in isolation.

By Joshua Koopferstock

Who hasn’t always dreamed of having a $2000 sculpture of their own head?  I know I have.  And finally, thatsmyface.com will make this dream come true.  With the upload of 2 photos of your face, one in front view and one in profile, thatsmyface.com will reconstruct a 3D model of your head in a semi-automatic fashion. This is a pretty neat attempt to bring a computer vision & 3D technology to the consumer market.

The technology behind the site is nothing new.  I can’t say for sure, but I would be willing to bet that thatsmyface.com is using FaceGen technology, which has been around for 10 years.

Similar?

Still, you don’t need cutting edge technology AND an exciting product to make a successful business; one of the two will usually do just fine.  Thatsmyface.com now just needs to convince people that what they’ve always wanted was random gear with their head as the main feature.  For the sake of entrepreneurship, good luck to them!