The masterful engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are busy working on a type of 3D display capable of presenting that elusive third dimension without any eye gear. We say “elusive” because what you’ve been presented at your local cinema (with 3D glasses) or on your Nintendo 3DS console (with your naked eye) pales in comparison to what these guys and gals are trying to develop: a truly immersive 3D experience, not unlike a hologram, that changes perspective as you move around.

MIT develops holographic, glasses-free 3D TV

http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Optimized-Systems/Smarter-3D-Employs-EyeTracking/

http://www.starwars.com/movies/episode-i/3dannouncedate

In the creation of the film Avatar, director James Cameron invented a system called Simul-cam. It allowed him to see the video output of the cameras, in real time, but with the human actors digitally altered to look like the alien creatures whom they were playing. The system also negated the need for a huge amount of animation – every performance was captured in all its blue-skinned, pointy-eared majesty as it happened, so it didn’t need to be created from scratch on a computer. Now, researchers from the University of Abertay Dundee have built on the techniques pioneered by Simul-cam to create a new system, that lets users act as their own cameraperson within a 3D environment.

http://www.gizmag.com/motus-system-for-3d-environments/16874

It’s not quite the flickering blue projection of Princess Leia begging, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!” from the classic sci-fi movie Star Wars, but holographic projection has just beamed a bit closer to reality. Researchers in Arizona have devised a novel plastic film that can be used to generate holographic 3D images sent electronically from one location to another. The new telepresence setup doesn’t work yet at full video speed—it can update images only every 2 seconds—but the technology opens the door for everything from holographic surgery to movies that literally surround the viewer.

Holograms are more than just fancy photographs. Shift your head to the side while looking at a photo, and the image doesn’t change. Do that with a hologram, and instead of staring at the front of an image of, say, a fighter jet, you’re looking at the side (see video). Lasers are the key: When recording a hologram, one beam of laser light illuminates the target. This light is combined with light from a second “reference” beam, creating an interference pattern akin to the one seen when two sets of ripples overlap on a pond. When this light strikes a photographic plate, the interference pattern is recorded. Later, shining a light back on the photographic plate causes light to diffract off the interference pattern, reconstructing the 3D image.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/11/real-time-holograms-beam-closer-.html

A rumor is circulating today that Lucasfilm plans to convert the four Indiana Jones movies to 3-D, a move echoing its six Star Wars conversions that will debut in 2012 with The Phantom Menace. It could be interesting, right? Alas, a Lucasfilm representative tells Movieline we won’t find out any time soon.

A studio source I’ve worked with in the past denied the story outright: “This is completely false. Right now, we are totally focused on bringing Star Wars to 3-D, and we have no plans to do an Indiana Jones conversion.” And… scene. It’s too bad, too, because let’s be honest: You’ve never really seen a fridge nuked until you’ve seen it nuked in 3-D.

http://www.movieline.com/2010/10/lucasfilm-indiana-jones-3-d-rumors-are-completely-false.php