To: Distribution
From: David Kahaner ONRFE
Re: Fujitsu's 3D movie generated partially via CAP 256 parallel computer.
25 April 1990

The following was reported to me by John Boyd, who writes the computer
column for the Japan Times. John is not academically trained as a 
computer scientist but his observations are nevertheless useful.



A 550 km Trip to the Movies

John Boyd

OSAKA. A couple of weeks before the International Garden and Greenery
Exposition opened in Osaka this month, a party of 50 press people, me included,
boarded a plane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport and flew down to Osaka to see a
movie.  You may think traveling some 550 kilometers to see a movie,
particularly one lasting only 20 minutes, a wee bit excessive, but this is
Japan, after all.

It was Fujitsu Ltd. who thoughtfully laid on the trip for us, mainly in the
hope of getting some extra mileage out of a Y3.6 billion (about US 22.8
million) investment in its Echoes of the Sun, the world's first full-color
3D-wrap-around computer graphics movie, co-produced with Imax Systems Corp. of
Canada.

To be fair, that investment figure includes the movie's running costs at the
Expo, our trip down to Osaka, plus the price of Shinkansen Bullet Train tickets
back to Tokyo, as well as a tasty lunch laid on at Fujitsu's Kansai Systems
Laboratory.

Was the trip worth it?  Well, it was certainly some movie. The 3D images pop
out, not only in front of you, but above you and on both sides as well, which
means at times you get the feeling of actually taking part in the action--in
this case traveling through a plant's ducts, a leaf's cells, and an animal's
blood vessels and muscles. Therefore, if you happen to be visiting Osaka in the
next six months and intend to see the movie, unlike us, don't eat lunch first.

Everything from the egg-shaped theater, through to the stereoscopic projection
technology and the LCD electronic shutters of the 3D glasses, is leading edge
stuff. Computer graphics make up about half the 30,000 frames of the movie and
Fujitsu estimates each frame cost Y40,000 (about U.S. $250), or Y120 million
($76,000) per minute to produce.

As befit's Japan's number one computer company, Fujitsu spent three years from
the planning stages to completion of the movie, assigning 40 full-time
technicians for 21 months of the project's life.

Yet even Fujitsu underestimated just how much computational power was required
to produce the film. It now calculates the computer graphics portion took 17
times more computation than the company's previous black and white 3D effort,
We Are Born of Stars, Fujitsu made for the Science Expo held at Tsukuba,
Japan's science city, in 1985.

Besides devoting a VP-200 supercomputer exclusively to the project for two
years, the team also needed the help of an additional 850 MFLOPS VP-200E
supercomputer for six months, plus 15 months of processing from a 256-cpu CAP
(cellular array processor) machine Fujitsu uses in parallel processing
research.

For its part, Imax developed a new projection system that uses what it calls
the "alternative image method of stereoscopic projection,"  as well as
developing new 3D cameras and new liquid crystal display 3D glasses.

Two projectors, both using reels of 70 mm Estar film, alternatively project
right-eye and left-eye images onto a hemispheric screen at 24 frames each per
second. Unbeknownst to the viewer attired in his or her high-tech 3D glasses,
the LCD lenses are synchronized with the dual projectors so that the right lens
automatically closes while the left lens opens, with a 0.02-second lag between
the two. Synchronization of the LCD shutters is performed via wireless infrared
transmission.

This means the viewer sees only an image intended for the left eye with the
left eye, and visa versa for the right eye, though he is unaware of this
because of afterimage retention. The overall effect is great depth of field and
the creation of 3D images on any part of the screen. 

The movie itself was delightful; while it can be described as a sort of adult
Sesame Street educational feature on energy and how nature transforms it into
movement, part of the inspiration clearly came from Isaac Asimov's Fantastic
Voyage. The story employs puppets, live animals and Fujitsu's spectacular
computer graphics, all to great effect, so children may even get as much out of
it as their parents.

Still, Osaka is a long way to go to see a movie, but then you can always spend
the rest of the day visiting the other high-tech pavilions built by Fujitsu's
rivals such as NEC Corp., IBM Japan, Hitachi Ltd.

As for Fujitsu, it's taking its investment seriously. After the Osaka Expo ends
in September, it will move the system to a new software research facility it's
presently building in Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture, just outside Tokyo. According
to a company spokesman, Fujitsu could one day find itself in the movie business
in a big way.

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