A group of young developers, who recently graduated in computer engineering at Chulalongkorn University, have researched and developed innovative 3D-display technology. Apinand Dabpetch, 23, co-founder of a new company LarnGear Technology, said the company had developed a new technology called Overlaid Environment (OE), that brings 3D objects to a user's real world.

OE Technology consists of three parts - the camera, processing software and the display screen. The concept is to allow people to see actual 3D objects through headset monitors as a result of OE software processing.

The 3D objects will overlay on the real environment, hence the term Overlaid Environment. To see 3D objects, people wear a head-mounted display device equipped with a camera, which captures the surrounding environment of the viewer.

Once the viewer looks at a book or area with a chessboard pattern created by the company, the attached camera will send the captured video to the software to process and display the image of the 3D model overlaid on the video of the environment that the viewer is seeing in real-time. The 3D model is overlaid on exactly the right position of the chessboard.

"Wearing a headset monitor display, if they open the viewer at the 'OE Car Book', they see a 3D car popping out from that book. The 3D objects move or rotate according to the user's view. This makes them feel that there are real objects appearing in front of their eyes, but they are untouchable," said Apinand.

The 3D image will always rotate and translate in conjunction with the changing view. If the user looks left, the model on the video will move to the right. If the user looks farther away, the model will be smaller. If the user looks around the model, the model will rotate according that view. Thus, the viewer will have the perception that the imaginary model actually exists in the real world," said Apinand.

The display can come in forms other than the head-mounted display, such as a large plasma screen, a small hand-held LCD display, or even a regular monitor, to suit different application needs.

Apinand said he and his friends from Chulalongkorn University had developed OE over 18 months in order to contest the National Software Contest (NSC 2006) arranged by the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre. His OE won in the category for students.

OE then won the MERIT Award at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) 2006 in Macau, beating 18 candidate teams from 15 countries.

"OE was our lab research topic at Chulalongkorn University. We were interested in it and saw the potential of this kind of technology. We have studied this technology for many years. It is quite new for Thailand, but we believe it will play an important role in displays in the future, especially in the era of electronic books and electronic media," said Apinand.

He said OE can be applied in many businesses such as learning centres, restaurants, retail shops, supermarkets and advertising. The OE technology has been demonstrated at ICT Expo 2006, APICTA 2006 and at TK Park.

He said because this is new technology the focus on a niche market. "It is so difficult in the early stage to educate the market and users," he said.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation