3D Display On Your Tablet

The iPad has  completely revolutionized computers, from a keyboard and mouse to touchscreen control.

Although it’s hard to believe, it was nearly five years ago when Apple first debuted the iPad. What has since completely revolutionized computers, from a keyboard and mouse to touchscreen control, we all must admit that the iPad was not the first tablet, and yet, people refer to all tablets now as “iPads”, and the brand name has sold tens of millions of the devices.

Tablets and iPads alike have freed the constraints of work desks and desk tops alike. Touchscreen has allowed users to literally have direct touch/physical contact with the virtual objects on-screen, theoretically presenting a 3D environment, but relayed on a 2D flat screen.

But what does this mean for the future? Obviously, with even major companies like Sony, Facebook, and HTC investing millions of dollars in virtual reality, the next step is 3D.

The next generation tablets will perform and deform themselves into other shapes. They will be physically re-configurable surfaces, with interfaces that change their shape to ensure a better representation of on-screen content.

The next generation tablets will perform and deform themselves into other shapes. They will be physically re-configurable surfaces, with interfaces that change their shape to ensure a better representation of on-screen content.

What Mashable calls “dynamic physical geometry” or “tablets with interfaces that morph in three, real dimensions rather than simply displaying 2D representations of them”, will completely revolutionize human-computer interaction. 

Pixels will soon protrude from the physical display surface, and will help enhance applications regarding architecture, design, photography, and of course, gaming. 3D modelings might also be widely beneficial for teams, entertainment and for those with disabilities.

The idea of a tablet morphing into a TV remote control, and then again into a videogame controller, means that apps will be able to modify a visual display - sure - but they will also literally change the physical properties of the original device.

All of this technology is much closer than you’d think: Tactus Technology’s Phorm is already generating fixed-position buttons that protrude from the physical surface by using liquid to fill small pockets.

The iPad made us press screens instead of buttons, but 3D will have us press dynamic surfaces that reconfigure themselves in the air.

ShapeClip is a tool that changes any computer screen from 2D to 3D, by transforming the light from the screen into a movement via coordinates. It adds a z-axis to the screen’s already existent x- and y-axes. This allows developers and designers to produce physical content that changes simply by adding the ShapeClip tool. Completely portable, scalable and fault-tolerant, the tool is already on of the many to come.

The iPad made us press screens instead of buttons, but 3D will have us press dynamic surfaces that reconfigure themselves in the air.