Recently I have been doing a lot of work in VR to explore visualization and interaction with objects that have four spatial dimensions. It’s a fun topic that has fascinated me since childhood — but now I can actually do something about it.
Alas, our physical universe, as far as we know, only allows us to roam around in three spatial dimensions. Fortunately, newly emerging virtual reality technologies are making it ever easier to simulate that extra spatial dimension.
I am hopeful that this kind of research will help to give wonderful super powers to new generations of children. If you want to learn more about that, you can read it in my blog post today at our Future Reality Lab.
Projecting a 2D image down to 1D doesn’t seem useful, as it loses much information.
Projecting 3D worlds down to 2D is useful (and often entertaining) for humans, whether it’s an illustration or photography.
I find binocular stereoscopic (“3D”) movies and photos enjoyable, but honestly the 3D impact doesn’t last on in my memory. For example, I’ve seen the latest Star Wars movie in both 3D and 2D formats, and I’m sure, in the moment, I probably enjoyed the greater immersion of the 3D version, but, upon recall I can’t distinguish between them. I can’t even remember if the 3D version was my first or second viewing.
So I’ve long wondered whether 4D image projected down to 3D and then sent to our brains through a pair of 2D sensors will be as understandable and useful as 3D-to-2D or if it would just feel like an Escher illustration.