When will my phone produce true 3d images – images with depth, like a 3d Television?
The answer – phone size 3d devices are already appearing.
Wikipedia provides a list of 3d phones which are already, or soon will be on sale. My experience with such phones is current generation 3d phones are power hogs – if you want to play a 3d game, you need to plug the phone charger in, otherwise the 3d display will flatten your battery in minutes.
Normal phone displays are power hungry. If you stop touching the phone, normal 2d phones dim the backlight within a minute or two, and switch it off completely a few minutes later, to preserve battery life.
The reason 3d displays are so power hungry is that 3d displays produce two display images – one for each eye. So a 3d phone consumes battery reserves at least twice as fast as a normal 2d phone – even faster once you include the additional computation required to keep both displays coordinated.
What we are looking for then, is not a new type of display – 3d displays are already available. What we need, to make 3d displays practical, is a leap forward in mobile battery technology.
There is good news – we probably won’t have long to wait. And when true 3d displays become mainstream, most of the games and apps constructed by developers like me will be able to use the new technology, without modification.
Under the hood, games and other advanced apps are already 3d. When you see photo realistic space ships, monsters, or other 3d components of app games, what you are seeing is actually a computerised 3d shape created by app developers and artists, projected by software onto a 2d display. No tricks – phone apps and game consoles are already 3d under the hood.
Will the next iPhone, iPhone 6, be true 3d? Probably not. But my prediction is iPhone 7 might be.
If you would like more information about some of the exciting advances in 3d graphics which could be used in the development of your new app, please contact eworrall1@gmail.com.