Topic: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

What will happen once 3D television hits? Assuming people are willing to wear the glasses. 3D computer screens are doubtless already out there. How will touch-screen meet up with 3D and music?

Will we be be able to:

Pull a piano closer to us?
Grasp a note in space (assuming someone develops a 3D sequencer that displays notes floating out in space from the instrument) and pull it to the center of the sound stage?

There's no tactile realm implied by 3D, is there? We'd have to wear special gloves, and the glasses, to feel a piano lid as we raised it...

Last edited by Jake Johnson (22-02-2010 04:01)

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

Hmmm...  I wonder if the holodeck on the Enterprise uses Pianoteq algorithms...

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

As I actually think about it, I can see the big problem--you have to touch the screen to interact with an object for touch-screen stuff. (Maybe that's why they call it "touch-screen"....) So the user would be touching behind the object instead of on it.  The monitor couldn't sense the pressure if the user reaches a foot out into space.

But there might be something developed along the lines of a Wii controller, attached to the hand, that could sense the vectors from the screen or a usb device? Surely the Wii people are already way ahead on this--a tennis game with the ball really seeming to come at you?

The sound is what is important, but there could be some fun and more there. (Which partial reaches the ear first?) And visualizing partial structures\spectrum profiles over time could get better, at the very least, even if we have to touch the screen to make edits. Just need those glasses...

Last edited by Jake Johnson (22-02-2010 04:08)

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

Probably would interfere with actually playing the piano:  http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/07/14/ath...-the-love/

but

Project Natal and similar tech is VERY interesting:  http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

Natal uses no controller? Have to do more reading. Do they have it working with midi? But if there's no controller....what's the thing that controls? Und das 3D thang?

Yeah, the playing thing would be a problem. Edit with gloves on. For playing, the gloves come off?

Last edited by Jake Johnson (22-02-2010 04:13)

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

I doubt very much that Natal will have the resolution to do fine motor control like piano playing, at least at first.  The future is a very exciting time indeed.

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

Everyone has their own barrier to which they are willing to follow the path of evolution that has become the path of technological progress.
My personal barrier has been reached since oscillations had been converted to mathematical models that can be run in real time - but still drive speaker membranes that move real air to feed my real ears, and they have to do so when my real fingers hit real keys. A 2D-screen is perfect to show me where the real world ends.
Of course I won't stop progress by my personal barriers, but I strongly recommend everybody to watch out if they might get lost in virtuality... The human body with its real world restrictions is a phase-out model, but that's what we were born to be.
Sorry, that was pure cultural pessimism. I don't even use a mobile phone...

There are 3D screens with special lenses that work without glasses at least for single users whose heads can be located in order to send two pictures into the appropriate directions for both eyes, and there are algorithms that can "see" the movements of your hands without special gloves. The only problem is the tactile feedback, I think...

Pianoteq Pro 8.0.0, Organteq 1.6.5, MacBook Pro 16" i9, Mac OS X 13.0.1, Universal Audio Volt 4, Logic Pro X 10.7.5, FM8, Absynth 5, The Saxophones/Clarinets, Reaktor 6 and others

Re: Theoretical foolishness--3D computers, touchscreens, and music?

Oh, my own barriers are probably already established, too. 2D works for me. But I can't help wondering. So much will be done in the gaming world, and in showing sports, trailers for films, online "swimsuit issues" of magazines, etc that there's bound to be a lot of experiments with sound stuff. Most of it will be terrible, like all of the slasher films that will send heads and blood flying out into the audience. But here and there, interesting things will arise?

Maybe, at first, the controller aspect isn't where things will go? There might be more innovation in creating effects that come from the sound--take the old-fashioned light show and make it 3D, so that there are various colored flames or clouds, for example, that spread around you? Modulate them with pitch and LFO's. Use surround sound. Remember that Virtual Barbershop demonstration of binaural sound? Not sure how 3D comes together with that. The virtual rainforest, etc, I guess. Could put you in an auditorium or on a stage, too, with the room and audience seen in depth.