zSpace was at CES showing its normal range of stereoscopic 3D displays and educational applications. But they also debuted something new – a plan to offer a consumer version of their 3D display and an application to enable 3D images on web pages.
The new display will likely be based upon their 24” model currently sold into schools and other professional applications. This is one of the best glasses-based 3D monitors we have ever seen, but it sells for around $1500 – too high for consumer use. No additional details on specs, timing or pricing were revealed, but we look forward to seeing this one once released.
The company also showed an interesting demo of a web page. What they do is tag content on a web page with a 3D marker. This then inserts the stereoscopic version of the graphic into the web page. How the system knows when to do this was not clear, but it worked quite well in the demo where a watch was displayed as a 3D model that could be rotated and looked at in 3D, with good quality. This clearly has value for any commerce application.
Apparently, the Smithsonian web site has been tagged with a number of 3D models that can now be viewed in the same way using the zSpace display. Very cool. (CC)
