March 28, 2011 03:24 pm EDT

DARPA's Urban Photonic Sandtable Display enables 3D battlefield planning without goofy glasses

You probably point and laugh at your friends when they have big, bulky 3D glasses perched on their noses in theaters. That kind of tomfoolery just won't do amongst the military brass, who frown at the slightest hint of snickering in the operations room. This new 3D system, called the Urban Photonic Sandtable Display (UPSD), should help. It's a DARPA project, a fully holographic table (no glasses required) that can be scaled up to six feet diagonally and allows visual depth of up to 12-inches. The technology comes courtesy of Zebra Imaging, which earlier wowed us with some insane 3D printouts, and the data will come from LIDAR systems like this ROAMS bot. No word on when the system will be deployed to the field, but it should allow grizzled commanders and uppity businessmen to find unobtanium deposits, even if they happen to be located right under a big 'ol tree.

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DARPA's Urban Photonic Sandtable Display enables 3D battlefield planning without goofy glasses originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/28/darpas-urban-photonic-sandtable-display-enables-3d-battlefield/

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