The Air Force has identified a need for the creation of a common streaming model for 3D data including a scene description protocol and transmission format that is agnostic to the display technology at the end user. The standards effort is in general referred to as Streaming Media for Field of Light Displays (SMFoLD). The streaming model must be compatible with Field of Light Display (FoLD) visualization systems, as well as stereo 3D and 2D SMFoLD compliant display systems. To address this need, Third Dimension Technologies (TDT) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in collaboration with Insight Media and with support from the Air Force Research Laboratory have initiated work on a project to develop an open standard for streaming 3D visuals to any SMFoLD compliant display type.
C. E. (Tommy) Thomas, PhD, Founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Third Dimension Technologies (TDT)
Dr. Thomas has been working with holography, lasers and electro-optics design for more than 30 years (since 1972). Dr. Thomas holds a PhD in Plasma Physics (holography thesis) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, 1980, and is the inventor of the Holographic Angular Slice 3D Display (HAS3D). Research since 2003 includes development of the HAS3D and research on digital holography as a fast, high-resolution fusion-plasma electron density and plasma facing component erosion diagnostic. Prior to TDT, Dr. Thomas was a co-founder of nLine Corporation where he developed holographic image acquisition technology that allows extremely accurate measurement of semiconductor features to one percent of the laser wavelength used for measurement. More recently, Dr. Thomas has been working with the Air Force Research Lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Insight Media on the development of a streaming standard for field of light displays (SMFoLD).
