Developing 3D Vision


From the demands of cinema to develop better 3D, to the stimulus that computer games gave to hardware development, the creative industries have been responsible for driving new technologies that have widespread social benefits. A workshop on Cultural Science: Innovation versus Invention in the Creative Industries was held in collaboration with colleagues from the Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for the Creative Industries and Innovation. Through other IAS research projects, such as the Is the Future Deterministic? conference this year and a previous IAS-sponsored workshop on Physics and Anthropology, Durham has forged strong interdisciplinary and international connections between evolutionary theory, anthropology and media and social studies. The Cultural Science workshop in 2010 therefore brought together participants from both Durham and Queensland to build a new programme of research that will explore the ways in which evolutionary science and anthropology can collaborate with the creative industries.


Martin S. Banks worked with Durham’s Biophysical Sciences Institute to develop a new system of 3D vision. Current 3D headsets can induce headaches and nausea because of the way in which the eye is forced to focus on the projected images. The new lens-switching technique Banks developed in collaboration with Durham researchers circumvented this problem.


The new technology, called ‘In-Focus 3D’ will have significant benefits for surgeons who use 3D images to perform non-invasive diagnoses of the body.


However, the product has also seen interest from a number of media companies, because this new form of 3D has great potential for television viewing and computer games playing.


A press release on the innovative ‘In Focus 3D’ system can be read at: www.durham.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=11884


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