S3D Market Opportunities

While the big screen generates the big numbers (3D movies in the US grossed over $10 billion in 2011, in a somewhat depressed year for cinema) with just 11,000 screens worldwide, the little screen showed 3D on over 23 million screens in 2011. By little screen we mean TV of course, but also handhelds and mobile game players. Applications range from the entertainment to simulation, visualization, and medical interfaces.

S3D Platforms and Techniques

There are seven types of display decoder technologies that deliver S3D on at least 13 platforms, making the combination a potential 91 examples. But not every platform can use every decoder, and therefore we have determined that there are 29 practical combinations, as shown in Table 1.

The various platforms have CAGRs from 16% (new 3D screens) to 190% for mobile devices, as shown in the following figure.

While Stereovision has primarily been associated with 3D movies and games, its use is much more far-reaching. Increasingly, Stereovision or S3D is used for live concerts and sports events in theaters and streamed to tablets and TVs, uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing sites, and for stereo photos shown on PCs, digital picture frames, and mobile phones.

S3D is also used in scientific and engineering applications such as display of automobiles during the design phase, in medical study and surgical practice, for molecular study, and astronomical visualization to mention just a few uses outside the realm of entertainment.

JPR sees new opportunities coming with the advent of S3D sensors and displays on mobile devices. The addition of depth information provided by S3D enhances the quality and the quantity of information coming into the device and Augmented Reality applications will become even more compelling and powerful.

S3D is a component, not an industry. Like color, sound, motion sensing, it is a feature that augments content and makes it richer, but if the content isn't good in the first place, S3D is not going to help. The industry is well past the stage of novelty and it's time to start exploring the potential of S3D.

This study covers the technologies involved in S3D systems, such as components that constitute a workable S3D system, recent advances in the technologies involved, various traditional and new applications, and global markets for these technologies and applications. The report will be useful for the following:

Manufacturers of S3D systems and components
Systems integrators
Design and application engineers
Various industries and agencies needing S3D systems
Content developers
Investors interested in the suppliers

Executive Summary
Definitions AND Methodology
- Definitions
- Methodology
- Information Sources
  - Primary research for this report
  - Secondary research for this report
Introduction
- Scope of the Report
  - Input
  - Content
  - Output
- Is history destiny?
- Reasons for Conducting the Study
- Intended Audience
What is S3D?
- Auto-Stereoscopic Displays
- Screen lenses
- Head/eye tracking
- Active Shutter Glasses
- Passive Glasses
- S3D Platforms and Techniques
- Display
- Source of content
- Physiological Problems
MARKET SIZES
- Cinema
  - Glasses
  - Market size and potential
  - Prospects for S3D
- Television
  - Glasses
  - Market size and potential
  - Prospects for S3D
  - Other issues affecting the growth of 3D TV
  - Pricing of 3D TV sets
  - High-resolution screens
  - Sports the leading application
  - World’s first 3D test-run broadcast in Korea
- Other issues affecting the growth of the 3D TV
- It’s the content
  - Glasses-free TV
  - Projectors
- Game consoles
  - Dedicated S3D monitor
  - Glasses
  - Next gen
  - Market size and potential
  - Prospects for S3D in game consoles
- PCs
  - Glasses
  - Market size and potential
  - Prospects for S3D in PCs
    - Auto-stereoscopic display retrofitted to existing computers
- Mobile Devices
  - Smartphones
  - Tablets
  - Handheld game machines
  - Glasses
  - Market size and potential
  - Prospects for S3D mobile devices
    - Augmented Reality
    - Stereo Photography
    - Games
    - Video
- Other
  - Signage
  - Digital picture frames
  - Design studios, simulation, and visualization
  - Z-Space S3D workstation
  - See-Through 3D Desktop
  - CAVEs and VR
  - Medical instrumentation
  - Print
Usage Models
- S3D Augmented Reality
- Sensors
Appendix
- The History of 3D
- SAM, TAM, and PAM
- Data Sources
  - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
  - Bureau of Economic Analysis
  - Hoover’s
  - International Monetary Fund
  - Internet World Stats
  - Jon Peddie Research
  - Manta
  - The World Bank
- Societies
- Geographic Data
  - The Americas
    - Caribbean
    - Central America
    - South America
    - North America
  - Asia-Pacific
  - Europe
  - EMEA
    - Africa
    - Middle East
- Viewing Technologies and Developments
  - S3D display formats
  - Interlaced Scanline
  - Over/Under Squashed
  - Side by Side
  - Anaglyph
- Converters
  - Google YouTube converts HD video to 3D
- Is Service Compatible the Answer to Broadening 3D Adoption?
  - Polarized 3D glasses
    - Linearly polarized glasses
    - Circularly polarized glasses
  - Glasses-free 3D display
  - Improved integral imaging approach for 3D object recognition
- The Stereo Vision Project?
  - CAVEs and VR

Table of Figures

Figure 1: The overall market opportunity for S3D systems worldwide by year
Figure 2: Block diagram of basic data flow in S3D
Figure 3: Head-tracking app for tablet (Source: I3D)
Figure 4: Students in MSU Baroda university evaluate S3D
Figure 5: Dolby’s color filter 3D glasses
Figure 6: RealD 3D glasses
Figure 7: S3D cinema screens
Figure 8: 3D-movies are doing very well and follow the general ups and downs of the industry
Figure 9: 3D TV shipments
Figure 10: 3D TV viewing with low-cost passive glasses will expand the market (Source: LG)
Figure 11: Total emersion with wrap-around screens and S3D (Source: JPR)
Figure 12: S3D PC shipments
Figure 13: The functional block diagram of Spatial View’s real-time dynamic tracking glasses-free S3D screen implementation (Source: Spatial View)
Figure 14: This is actually a 2D flat painting, but you only get the 3D effect from one viewpoint (Source: Wikipedia)
Figure 15: The HTC Evo 3D
Figure 16: Wikipad with an 8-inch 1080p touch screen
Figure 17: Stereo 3D mobile devices shipments
Figure 18: The Immersive Environments Lab (IEL), a joint project of Penn State's Information Technology Services (ITS) and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Figure 19: Infinite Z’s zSpace S3D workstation
Figure 20: No Evil (Copyright 2006 Gene Levin)
Figure 21: Conceptualization of PAM/TAM/SAM and SOM (Source: RAK Associates)
Figure 22: S3D display formats
Figure 23: Google 2D-to-3D converter concept
Figure 24: A linear polarizer converts an unpolarized beam into one with a single linear polarization. The vertical components of all waves are transmitted, while the horizontal components are absorbed and reflected.
Figure 25: Circular polarizer passing left-handed, counter-clockwise circularly polarized light
Figure 26: Parallax barrier light field schematic (Source: KAIST)
Figure 27: KAIST’s parallel-barrier design (Source: KAIST)
Figure 28: Block diagram of the prototype of the dual-layer parallax barrier (DLPB) system
Figure 29: Illustration of the pick-up process
Figure 30: Illustration of the reconstruction process
Figure 31: Exemplified slices of 3D reconstructed images of three toy cars used in the experiment
Figure 32: Training and classification using neural networks. PCA: Principal component analysis

Table of Tables

Table 1: Combinations of S3D systems and display techniques