Peddie J. The History of Visual Magic in Computers. How Beautiful Images are Made in CAD, 3D, VR and AR

Springer, 2013. — 485 p.This is a book about the letter Z. That thing we call the z-axis, which adds a third dimension. For most of us, we figured out at a young age how to draw squares, triangles, and circles, and we managed to get through geometry, in about the ninth grade – but then along came those pesky cubes, pyramids, and spheres, and our math capabilities skidded to a stop.
When it comes to Z, we’re not even sure how to pronounce the letter – even in English, let alone other languages – where we struggle between zee and zed. And why the Brits use organise instead of organize confuses further. Why we use measure instead of meazure, or conversely, azure instead of asure; and freeze/froze/frozen in the same way we use chose/chose/chosen is beyond me.
For readers interested in computer graphics and display technologies, we are already accustomed to such confusion. After all, for generations we’ve blithely accepted as standard measures refresh rates of 29.97 frames per second, image heights of 486 lines (or is it 483 lines? Er, maybe it’s 480 lines), sampling every other scan line at different times (interlacing), doing matrix arithmetic on nonlinearly encoded color signals. Huh?
Centuries ago, we switched from a Greek alphabet starting with alpha and ending with omega – we now use an expanded alphabet that starts with A and ends with Z. Still, now long after we expanded from omega to zed, our use of the letter Z is anything but common. Z is our least used letter of the alphabet, and we use it interchangeably with other sounds, like g, j, si, ts, and x. Somewhat similarly, we are now in the final stages of shifting the world of displays from analog to digital solutions – an enormous change.
This book helps us churn through the history behind such esoteric calculations, enabling us to understand the technology limitations that resulted in the graphics solutions and displays we now use. For many reasons, the history of graphics and displays diverged as the two major industries using the technologies grew – TVs and PCs came up with significantly different solutions, resulting recently in a collision (or should it be collizion?) between the two markets.
This collision, (often called convergence), leaves us inevitably to the intriguing notion that our TV display devices will serve as a computer monitor, just as our PC display entertains us with TV output. And then there’s Z – creating big questions about how stereoscopic technologies will similarly converge across platforms that still offer fundamentally different usage models. Our PCs tend to be single-user, single-view devices; while our TVs tend to be multi-user, multi-view devices – a factor that dramatically transforms the display technology solutions that enable the z-dimension.
Many commentators in the media today are fond of questioning the need for the z-dimension in the market for flat panel displays. Indeed, creating three dimensional images using a 2-dimensional surface is highly problematic. Today’s 3D rendering solutions are simply amazing – creating depth cues that are simply amazing – to the point that some suggest that stereoscopic 3D display solutions are simply not necessary.
One of the most common uses of the letter Z is to represent the act of sleeping (zzzz). Interestingly, it’s still a topic of tremendous debate as to whether we dream in 3D or in 2D. Can our mind form the dual views necessary for stereopsis – or do our eyes need to be part of the 3D experience? The human visual system is based on the placement of our two eyes – and this binocular anatomy defines a stereo world. No matter how good 3D rendering algorithms become, they will always fail to replicate the world we actually see. Accordingly, 3D displays are inevitable, regardless of the skepticism of so many in the media.
This book does an amazing job of identifying the history behind 3D graphics and 3D displays. While the past fascinates, the truly evocative thing about this book is that it identifies that while the technologies are steadily evolving – such that there is no question that 3D visualization techniques and technologies will increasingly become a part of our future.Getting to 3D
Developing the 3D Software
Developing the Applications
Developing the Computer
The Development of 3D Controllers
Development of Displays: Getting to See 3D
Stereoscopic 3D in Computers
The Future