Synthetic 3D Imaging

Columbia University, Department of Computer Science
Instructor: Mark Lucente, Ph.D.
Course taught in 1996.

I created Synthetic 3D Imaging to bring students from many disciplines together to work with the wide variety of technologies and practices for creating three-dimensional images. This was a hands-on class: we desiged and constructed 3D images, utilizing techniques such as lenticulars, stereoscopes, the parallax-barrier method, etc. We used these techniques to explore and quantify the many depth cues utilized by the human visual system to see spatially.
Many thanks to the students who made the course exciting and productive, and to Professor Steven Feiner for making it possible.
- Mark Lucente [2001]

archival course content from 1996

course description

CS E6998-045: Synthetic 3-D Imaging - Spring 1996, Monday 4:10pm-6pm, 1024 SW Mudd.
Synthetic (computer-generated) imagery is bursting onto TV, movie, and computer screens everywhere. Can truly three-dimensional imaging be far behind? This course explores the technologies and underlying science of 3-D imaging techniques, with an emphasis on synthetic and interactive images. Through demonstrations and laboratory experiments, we will evaluate 3-D techniques in terms of depth cues, interactivity, cost, and image size, resolution, and color. Do some applications (e.g., medical imaging and CAD) need 3-D more than others (e.g., entertainment)? We will explore the history and the cutting edge of stereoscopic displays (e.g., polarized glasses, head-mounted displays), auto-stereoscopic displays (e.g., lenticulars), volumetric displays, and holography, including the latest research in interactive electro-holography.
Prerequisites: CS 3139, CS W4160 (or 1 semester of calculus), and enough experience with 3D graphics modelers (e.g., Alias|Wavefront, FormZ, or an ascii editor and VRML browser) to design and render 3D images. Recommended background: EE E3202 (or equivalent knowledge of signal processing).

course pages

Synthetic 3D Imaging course main page - many of the links are out of date, but this page gives a feel for the class

some remaining assignment pages:
Project list
Project 1 assignment
Project 2 assignment
Problem Set #5 - parallax barrier
News (from 1991): commercial autostereoscopic display

some remaining student pages:
Adam's Holographic Formula Calculator, in java
Alex's Research in human visual perception, color and 3D perception: edges, detection plus experiments 1 2 3 4 and grayscale

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Synthetic 3D Imaging / Mark Lucente / © 2004