Wednesday marked the beginning of 3DComm and the opening of the exhibits at here at InfoComm in Las Vegas. 3DComm, sponsored by Insight Media, is a series of educational seminars designed to showcase the latest in 3D equipment, offer education and training on 3D technologies and markets, and enable AV professionals to take advantage of 3D business opportunities on the horizon. Sessions held today were well attended and initial feedback was quite positive.

Dale Maunu
Insight Media Consultant

The exhibits occupy the north and central halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, with a section in the north hall dedicated to 3D. One feature of the show halls is an outlining of the various sections with a border so that visitors know when they wander out of the 3D section and into the Digital Signage section; this is a very useful feature that should be adopted at more events.

Alioscopy dominates the 3D section with a huge booth that features the company’s latest offering; a 47" AS-3D digital signage display featuring a lenticular lens and Alioscopy’s proprietary pixel addressing scheme. The display looks great, and they have high quality, pre-rendered content running.

The main point of their exhibit, however, highlights their AS-3D Eco-System; the booth’s perimeter is lined with various partners including content creation, content management, tools for education and medical markets, S-3D to AS-3D Conversion and casino gaming systems. They also had resellers and rental companies present. The idea is to have a community where people interested in AS-3D can find what they need to meet their digital signage objectives.

Other companies showing glasses-free displays include Holografika with their light-field display, as well as Visumotion, Horizon Display and Magnetic3D. The Magnetic3D AS-3D unit also uses lenticular technology, and was shown in the UCView Media booth. UCView makes an appliance for remotely managing a digital signage network that includes both 2D and AS-3D displays from a common web-based platform. Included in their platform is a tool for managing AS-3D content; various elements can be placed on the screen and scheduled to run as desired. The system allows simultaneous display of 2D and 3D images; such as having a 3D element on one-half of the screen and text on the other half.

Horizon Display is relatively new to the AS-3D market as they have traditionally focused on the touchscreen market. Their unit was a 46" Full HD auto stereoscopic display that Horizon buys from another maker; however, they declined to disclose who it is. Performance was good.

The AS-3D market is still quite small, but poised for growth. The content generally looks quite good from everyone and more companies are involved in the creation of AS-3D content. Let’s hope that next year the 3D pavilion is not tucked into the back of the hall so that AS-3D gets a real shot at what it should be able to do; grab the attention of general convention visitors and not just us folks that went looking for it.

CORRECTION: There was an error in the Display Daily that originally appeared on May 27, 2010. That original version mistakenly attributed the quantum-dot element in an LG backlight to QD Vision instead of to Nanosys, which actually made it. The archival version has been corrected, and an explanatory note added.