This year has seen a renaissance of 3D in the movies, with films like Monsters vs. Aliens, Up!, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs to name a few. The technology has vastly improved over the old version that required the use of cardboard red and blue glasses, the new Real 3D is truly worth experiencing. Cineplex has put major investment into 3D technology in many theatres and it has paid off with sold out shows. They quickly learned that in order to prop up falling movie sales, you had to offer something that users can’t get at home, a harder order to fill with HD TV, BlueRay and home theatres becoming so much more advanced.

However, this is a new age where the future becomes real much sooner than it used to. Just consider the iPhone; this device that can track where you are, take decent digital pictures, has thousands of applications, connect to the web just about anywhere and on and on and was the stuff of science fiction just a few years ago. The new 3D technology would have been limited to theatres for a long time in the past; but not anymore. Fuji is releasing for sale a 3D camera next month that is the start of home users being able to create their own 3D experience. A big advancement is that there is no longer a need for special glasses, and you will be able to get 3D prints as well that anyone can experience. This is a huge step forward. Imagine, starting next month wedding photographers will be able to offer real 3D prints to the newlyweds to hang on their wall, you can take home movies of the new baby in 3D, and even be able to rotate these images around for differing points of view. Remember, it was just mere months ago that the new 3D hit the theatres.

Given the speed of technology advancement, I wonder just how long it will be before HDTV also becomes 3D capable. Of course, your new HDTV won’t be compatible, the screen will need to be different. Because electronic manufacturers love technology that leads to obsolescence (and getting people to buy new stuff), my guess is that 3D TV is already in the works for production somewhere, now that the glasses problem has been solved. By the way it was invented 3 years ago. It’s entirely possible we’ll see these 3D televisions for sale within the next year or two.

Of course, the other huge market is computers and gaming in particular. Sure, we have what’s termed 3D gaming now, but that’s just point of view rendering on a 2D screen - I mean real 3D gaming. If 3D televisions come to the mainstream market, game and console makers will be tripping over themselves to get there at lightning speed. It should go without saying at this point that 3D computer monitors will be on the market at the same time or sooner than the televisions, driven by gaming initially.

So what about everything else we do on computers? Although I have no data to indicate anything in the works, I’d predict that many other computer related activities will move to 3D like operating systems and software, so it stands to reason that web design will also move rapidly in that direction. Graphic software manufacturers will have to put out mainstream packages to accommodate it, of course (Photoshop 3D, anyone?). There will be a huge opportunity for designers that are early adopters IMHO. The opportunities will also be there for designers beyond web design, as apparently the technology for 3D prints is now available. In fact, 3D print design can and probably will take place before computers catch up, heck we can do it next month. Imagine seeing full 3D posters and signs around. We just need the software to create in 3 dimensions with.

This is essentially like the move from mono to stereo sound. There were a few false starts with mainstream 3D visuals, but perhaps this time it will take hold and we will think about 2D graphics like we do now about black and white television. What do you think?