3D media - Blessing or curse?

A few weeks ago I watched Ice Age 3 in a cinema together with my children. It was my first full-length 3D-movie. Whilst we all agreed that it was an interesting experience, we are not sure whether we will invest the three euro additional entrance fee again for watching another 3D movie. The polarised one-size-fits-all glasses were somewhat uncomfortable to wear for the duration of nearly two hours, and my daughter complained about headache because of strained eyes. On the other hand, the 3D effects were really impressive, with a landscape going wide into the screen and objects hanging out of the screen directly in front of the audience’s eyes.

What we experienced was the beginning of 3D on the mass market. 3D cinemas are still scarce – experts say that the additional investment per digital 3D screen is about 100,000 euro. Nevertheless, 3D cinema movies are surely on their way to a mass market and probably the remit to solve the problem of decreasing numbers of cinema users. 

Just the beginning

3D media experiences are not new. Devices for viewing stereoscopic pictures became available as early as 1844. The first public 3D movie was displayed 1922. First 3D television productions appeared 1952 in the USA. However, they were far away from mass markets. The first mass market could now actually happen with 3D cinema movies. There are two main barriers, which need to be overcome on the way to mass market: first, wearing special glasses is uncomfortable and second, the experience still lacks real 3D where you can actually walk around and look behind things.

Though difficult enough, solving the technological issues to provide natural 3D experiences is just one side of the coin. To make 3D media a real success there is another issue which needs to be taken into consideration.
It is the question whether users really want immersive 3D media, and what the societal implications will be.

Currently, 3D is extremely high on the global research agenda. For example:

• The European Union’s R&D Framework Programmes invest millions of euros in 3D media and 3D technology related projects; 9 large projects are currently active in this area.

• Japan has established the “Ultra Realistic Communications Forum” with the goal to achieve natural 3D in 2020.

Technological challenges

The goal is to display media in 3D as naturally as possible – or better: as good as necessary to be accepted by the users. To my mind there is no question that everything we see today is just a short-term test experience for early adopter users. This includes all applications involving glasses and the glasses-free displays where one has to stand at specific angles to the screen for stereoscopic views.

Probably the only implementations which will be good enough in the long term are holographic 3D projections where a user has the impression that the displayed 3D object “sits” in the room in a fully natural way. Very much like the scene in “Star Wars”, where the Jedi had their virtual meeting and some of them sat at the table as 3D projections. Ideally, the virtual object is not distinguishable from a real object, involving displays that support full natural colours. The ultimate technology will be achieved, if those virtual 3D holographic objects can also be touched and give the impression of the real material.

Currently, we are far from such possibilities, even in research laboratories. 

Societal implications

Besides the technological challenges, which are huge, there is the question to what extent the users really want immersive 3D in their everyday life and what the societal implications are. In some areas, immersive 3D will definitely improve the way we are living, learning and working, yet there are some problematic issues involved.

An area where real 3D can bring significant improvements is realistic telepresence. Particularly for business meetings, natural 3D presence would be perfect. Also systems where geographically separated families or groups of friends keep in contact and enjoy common activities, like playing a game, via electronic means could benefit a lot from realistic 3D experiences. Such systems are only allowed to cause very low delay and the audio has to be fully natural as in face-to-face meetings.

The problematic societal part comes when we think about to what extent humans are able to distinguish between virtual and real worlds, when the virtual worlds will once be a perfect illusion of the real world. Will we start spending more and more time in the virtual 3D worlds? Will this make us even more addicted to electronic media and what will be the implications for the real life? It is my firm belief that the major part of human life will always have to take place in the reality, otherwise our society as it exists will disappear. Therefore, it will become an issue to ensure that we can always distinguish between real and virtual environments. Today this sounds trivial, but as 3D improves and we will be able to create perfect images of reality, it might not be trivial any more. Then we might need to establish regulations to ensure we have the human right to enjoy reality.