¿future of digital imaging?

[ho_co]

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New idea from the Swiss, presented with a bit of confusion by the Beeb:

 

** Artificial muscles light up TVs **

Televisions could show real colour images for the first time thanks to research by Swiss scientists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/technology/5263108.stm

 

--HC

[adan]

Interesting - although I'm not sure this applies to capture technology, just viewing. And just viewing on a screen - doubt one could get sheets of paper to hold all this stuff and cost, well, 'paper' prices.

 

"True" color, as opposed to CMYK or RGB approximations, has been a 'grail' for photo-technologists going all the way back to the 1800's (cf. Du Hauron et al). Someone actually got color pictures by coating silver emulsion onto a shiny plate. During exposure the lightwaves reflecting off the shiny background set up interference patterns (layerwise) in the emulsion with the incoming lightwaves. Once processed as a positive, viewing light would be filtered by the diffraction effects of silver layers at different depths in the emulsion to allow only the original wavelength of light to show in any area (green where green light had struck, blue where blue had struck). Didn't work perfectly since the emulsions were still not sensitive to red. But it was "pure" color - where 500 nanometer light hit, you got back only 500 nM light; where 460 nM light hit, you got back pure 460nM light.

 

As with the Foveon chip vs. Bayer-pattern chips - this may be scientifically more accurate, but unless it can be made economical it may languish.

[ho_co]

Interesting - although I'm not sure this applies to capture technology, just viewing. And just viewing on a screen - doubt one could get sheets of paper to hold all this stuff and cost, well, 'paper' prices.

You're certainly right, Andy.But at the moment, we can get pretty good images to paper from our digital files, but nothing like the quality of projected 35mm transparencies on screen.

 

I hadn't heard of the color process you describe; sounds brilliant (in concept if not in performance). Actually similar to the diffraction grating idea that BBC refers to as "artificial muscles."

 

--HC