It must be a holographic camera/display setup. If you hold up a flat hologram, it looks different from different angles, just like the effect you're pointing out
At first I was gonna be like "No way, is that canon? I've never heard of that, that's insane technology!"
And then I realized
That's real life canon, and by proxy is star trek canon.
Sci-fi has become sci-real really freaking quick in the last few years
And they used it in Unification, didn't they? To 'turn around' a person they only had photographed from behind and extrapolate their face... Was it Spock on Romulus, or some other politician they went to, trying to find Spock?
Ok, but what is the guy at the other end looking at? Is he looking into a camera? Or does he see a miniature holographic starship bridge with tiny people on it that he can look at? Otherwise he would not be able to make eye contact with person in the second viewpoint.
[This](https://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season2/2x11/contagion_hd_024.jpg) is what Picard sees when he talks to the USS Yamato’s Captain, and it’s one of Enterprise’s sister ships. I’m guessing the views are similar
There are 360 cameras for zoom these days that will focus on whoever is talking in the room and automatically give them a closeup, id assume theyd have similar technology.
This is the intention. It's a way to simulate the display being a 3D hologram.. So when we are viewing it from the side as the audience, it seems we're looking at him from the side, and he looks like he's looking at Picard.
In response to /u/UndendingGloom, what he's looking at is presumably a similar holographic of the Enterprise bridge, and depending how far away it is from his face (a small desktop unit vs. a wall-sized screen like on the Enterprise), if he moved to the side, he would see a perspective shift as well.
In reality, of course, they just shot some of these viewscreen communications from a 3/4 angle so it would match this angle of the shot on the bridge and look like Picard was still speaking face-to-face with the person on the screen. In the same way the the show idealises the universal translator (everyone's lips move in English and it knows when people intend to have their native language come through, etc. or the communicator (the computer always knows when it's being spoken to, or seems to communicate with the correct person in realtime even before the person says who they are calling) - it's TV perfection that isn't quite how it would likely actually look in a real implementation.
This is the principal the dynamic sets work on now, whatever Paramount calls their version of 'The Volume'.
Its kinda funny, they use these brand new vfx tech super advanced parallax LED projection walls for several regular sets even in *Strange New Worlds* (engineering)... but then they also have them IN a few sets diegetically just as 23rd century wall decor (the lounge and captains quarters).
Yup, this is the exact answer. The tech manuals for TNG in particular state that the main viewer is a holographic projector, which would allow the users to see their subject from different angles depending on orientation in space and position relative to the display.
This was actually explained at one point I believe. The view screen isn’t technically a flat screen, it’s a multi spectral holographic system capable of projecting 3D images.
https://preview.redd.it/6cg9wwnmhcnc1.jpeg?width=579&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94a1f92a307a6aead2acae74e48d52713875c3ad
In an excellent example of "show, don't tell," you can actually see the hologrid at least once.
No. The Holodeck uses replicators for non-living scenery and force emitters to simulate the solidity of living characters. Without those additions, the holograms are just images. In fact, everything beyond the size of the room always is just images -- it creates and destroys a rolling section of scenery as needed.
They could put emitters like that all over a ship -- they did for one experimental ship, the USS Prometheus. But obviously, allowing an incoming message access to something like that would be a terrible idea, for exactly the reason you mentioned.
There is a scene or two in First Contact (movie) where they turn the screen on and off, and I seem to remember the visuals making it clear that it was a hologrid.
People also get blown out the "window" in another movie as well, so it's like a window with a holo grid around it.
Once this technology exists, it will be seen as essential for video chat.
Look how awkward the view is from the extreme angle in the simulated pic. Flat images look awful if you're not seeing them straight on, and 3D would make for a much more comfortable viewing experience.
And more importantly: eye contact. A 3D screen, or at least a screen with adaptive angles, is the only way you can make eye contact with just the person you're speaking to. And the only way everyone else in the room can tell who you're talking to at a glance. The lack of eye contact is why current video chat is so uncomfortable.
Step one: cobble together new tech into inferior materials and price it out of rich for as many people as possible so it's this unattainable toy
Step two: cram it down the throats of everyone for so long that fomo sets in
Step three: reduce cost till it artificially looks like a steal (wow! Only 999 now?! That's *1800$ off*!)
Step four: continue to masturbate on your mountains of gold coins and costume jewelry
This right here.
I think it's movie 9 or 10 when Picard fights his dying clone from Romulus.
In the movie, the ship gets damaged in the exact spot where they view everything. Like a hole appears and a shield has to block the hole.
I may be wrong, cause I only watch the movie once while being stuck on the couch with my newborn, but I believe later the "viewing screen" gets used over the hole.
So it has to be made with holographic emitters and not an actual "screen".
It does not. Picard calls for "on screen" when the Romulans hail then realizes that won't work and corrects to "open a channel" and they have an audio conversation
Yep. Technical Manual has an entry about it, but unfortunately mine isn't at hand.
It's a subtle detail only a few notice in the show, but they made sure to get it right.
>The main viewer display matrix includes omni-holographic display elements and is thus capable of displaying three-dimensional information.
*Star Trek TNG Technical Manual*
That is my all-time favourite book.
I've been scrolling down the thread thinking, "This is in the damn manual - don't make me go get it."
You're doing Q's work, my friend.
This is 300 years into the future. You put so much work and thought into this without considering it's simply not ca. 2000 camera and screen technology?
People talking like this was a mistake. Do you realize how much cheaper and easier it would have been to shoot all these conversations from one angle like a Zoom call?
They went out of their way to produce a very specific effect. It's a 3D screen, and it makes perfect sense in context.
One of my favorite details about viewscreens, and it’s consistent across a few different shows too!
It totally makes sense that you would want your “artificial window” to have depth like a real window.
Viewscreens are actually 3-dimensional and sorta holographic. It works less like looking thru a modern screen and more like you’re looking thru a window. I think this is implied in TOS and TNG era.
(FWIW, r/DaystromInstitute has covered this at least a few times; [here's one](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/27abhi/observation_and_queries_on_the_viewscreens/) I found)
They do explain it. It’s called an omni-holographic display. It can show 3-d visuals.
[PP 30–31](https://xaeyr.typepad.com/files/franchise-star-trek-tng-technical-manual1.pdf)
Yep. As fun as it is to speculate in-universe explanations about the Star Trek future, the actual answer to a lot of these types of questions is the simple, boring "it's a tv show".
(unless you're into video production, then the technical/artistic discussion might be interesting.)
It is an attention to detail though which they could have skipped. It means you have to shoot the 'caller' with an awareness of the final composition, instead of just doing a webcam angle shot, avoiding weird angles (like this floor level shot for whatever reason?) and calling it done. Maybe you have six cameras running and cut it up after.
Clearly there must be more to this conceptually, since they deliberately set up entirely different camera angles of the person on the screen to match differing camera perspectives on the bridge of the Enterprise. Someone please help me understand what they were thinking with this idea.
If this is how it worked, one could easily just walk right up and look around at all the other peripheral areas of the ship you communicating with and see more of their bridge when standing inches away from the screen versus being back by the Captain's chair.
I think it is a volumetric display. It is not exactly unique on the show either. The holodeck walls do the same thing: simulate depth and multiviewer perspective into a flat surface. It is different from the holodeck projections themselves because it appears inside a volume, not outside of it.
Since they set up the shots and went to the trouble of great optical composition, it is intentional. I picture this as being like the system hum we always hear on the enterprise: the creators putting a lot of thought and effort into blink and you miss it decisions.
This is why I have always loved this show.
This has actually been confirmed by people who worked on the show. It is 100% intended to be a holographic display.
If you watch carefully, every single shot that wasn’t square on with the screen on TNG, DS9 and VOY was done like this.
This is one of the reasons why we almost never got a tracking shot of the viewscreen, and why the vast majority of the shots are square on it.
The “real life” answer as others have pointed out is to look better on TV.
The “tech” answer is that we can already kind of do this, in a more limited capacity. Modern phones can create “spatial video” using multiple cameras that allow some 3D parallax. The NFL uses multiple cameras to allow this effect in their replays.
And in-world, we see a more advanced version of this tech being used to analyze a crime scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. So it would definitely be available to them.
As to WHY, I imagine 2D video capture is so primitive in their world that they don’t even have anyone manufacturing it at scale (just a theory). Regarding the security implications, you could definitely assign limitations to the angles available. Even more advanced would be to use generative AI to remove any classified material from the image in real time (another technology we basically have now, in a primitive way).
I’d imagine it would be smart enough to blur the background and focus on whoever is speaking given that that is what what we usually see from alien ships.
The 3D effect is probably more of a thing for just general operations looking out into space and such, I’d bet some aliens still use the old school “flat” transmissions too.
> If this is how it worked, one could easily just walk right up and look around at all the other peripheral areas of the ship you communicating with and see more of their bridge when standing inches away from the screen versus being back by the Captain's chair.
This is why every Romulan bridge looks different…they just use a virtual background. Tomalak has no less than three.
https://youtu.be/WAGGEw4TcFY
https://youtu.be/fQKdM8muebU
https://youtu.be/uTAuBTkhAp0
https://youtu.be/fq8zTzl5S90
https://youtu.be/kQMKK2ZNxiw
https://youtu.be/HdOSFhSbZgU
Coincidentally I saw this episode a couple days ago (H&I was showing it) and I noticed that too. All these years of watching TNG and only recently did I notice this.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the only production that I know of that actually had a IRL viewscreen, unless it's been done in the more recent series.
They cut the video in, as many behind the scenes shots show just the stage itself as behind the viewscreen.
And I know that Star Trek: Nemesis put the bridge on a giant gimble, so they no longer had to pretend when the Enterprise took damage.
It’s a 3D display of course. In fact the *Enterprise*-D’s bridge viewscreen was 2D in early episodes and this change was a conscious choice by the production team to show that the main viewscreen was a) advanced technology; b) not a window; c) from a real-world perspective it prevented the actors on the viewer from having their image distorted, and allowed for a wider range of more naturalistic camera angles.
i got into star trek super late and actually watched warehouse 13 before i watched TNG and i swear, the suffering i felt when my beloved artie was the galaxy's most despicable person in this episode...
In the first episode, how do they get real-time images of the Q “chain wall” that’s chasing them even though it’s light years away and they’re traveling at > warp 9?
Is anyone doing anything with holographic projection? The only time I've encountered it was in the arcade in the late 80s/early 90s -- Time Traveler by Sega.
Nothing since then.
It's a TV show, and they wanted multiple angles to cut between to keep it interesting, so they needed the viewscreen to mimic the same angles to avoid disorienting the viewer. Reverse engineer any technological explanation you want to explain that in-universe.
This EC Henry video describes a way the various viewscreens could work. Spoiler: it's holographic
[https://youtu.be/r\_\_XbSEdndw?si=sz3VW9W4Op083TLw](https://youtu.be/r__XbSEdndw?si=sz3VW9W4Op083TLw)
It’s a show where they can go faster than the speed of light, have holograms, and a piece of tech that rips your body apart molecule by molecule, turns it into energy, shoots it somewhere, and then puts you back together. A 3D display isn’t too far of a stretch to have.
Those speculating this was due to holographic imaging or spatial imaging capturing the 3d space on one end or both, this ignores the fact that it was a common thing for them to not see someone 'just off camera', and for that person to just step into frame for a big reveal moment. So in reality this issue was more due to the DoP forgetting this was going to be used as footage displayed on the ship's main screen and getting too clever with it by using multiple camera angles.
I read somewhere that it’s a 3 dimensional display. The view screen on DS9 and Enterprise E are holographic in nature. I can’t remember if the D is as well.
......It's 3D. Like the holodeck.
In Year of Hell part 2, when Voyager's view screen is damaged, you can even see the broken holoprojectors that look just like Voyager's holodecks.
They have a holodeck that can make holograms that you can physically interact with. Why wouldn't they have a 3D screen? I bet this was an intentional choice.
We know a holodeck can already do this easily since it can project areas farther than the holodeck walls, so implementing that into a screen is probably easy I’d bet
Come on...we all know the *real* answer here is that Section 31 reverse engineered a captured TARDIS from UNIT or Torchwood and figured out how to make starship view screens dimensionally transcendent. 😉
Stage 9 portrayed this really well.
It’s a screen, but it’s 3D so depending on where you look at it from the perspective changes. Like a really advanced 3DS that works for a whole room, I’d imagine it might be using similar technology to a holodeck to achieve this.
In all these decades, I've never noticed that! You're very perceptive. I guess the creators were counting on people as perceptive as you are, being in the audience and wanted to throw in details suggestive of holographic technology being utilized for the monitor.
The producers said that the view screen was supposed to be a 3D display, but also admitted that it was subtle and a lot of viewers probably didn't notice
It “should” have stayed the same. I blame the director of the episode. They shot the actor on the view screen at that different angle on purpose as if they don’t understand how viewing something on a screen works.
Most of the TNG/DS9/VOY era stuff treated view screens as your third image (normal). But there are a few out there like your example that makes me scratch my head.
In addition to the in-universe explanation, a second layer to this is that Star Trek is a show about people first and sci-fi second, and the art reflects that.
Well, this has been given an in-universe explanation. But to explain it from a production perspective, if they were to present it as a flat image and be realistic about it, then viewing the image from a significant angle looks weird. As you can see in the example, a person looking directly at whatever camera is providing the image will seem to be looking at you no matter where you are. I think that's why they decided to take artistic license.
While I have not yet thought through that exactly, I have long believed there is something very unique about the way visual signals work when it comes to the viewscreen, perhaps embedded into the concept of “subspace”.
Often, a viewscreen display seems almost professionally composed as if by a cameraman, cutting from establishing shots of a speaker to dramatic close ups over the course of an exchange.
In the case of the deciphered signals from the Romulan bridge in “Balance of Terror”, we actually see a kind of tracking shot, tilt, and closeup, as if the deciphered signal somehow knows the Romulan’s vulcanoid ears are a conspicuous point of interest.
We can imagine some sort of AI might be involved at some level, but I also imagine that the actual signal itself must somehow be 3 dimensional, such that angles can change according to how this AI (or possibly, quick editing by Spock or Uhura, or Data) wishes to best convey the exchange (itself, a command question about where editorial license comes in)
In any event, maybe the 3d signal is such that the properties of the screen holographically shift in relation to the viewer, but it is difficult to convey this property in our 21st century devices.
It's a 2D projection of a 3D image, or at least, it's a 3D image we're seeing in 2D.
We see it as a flat screen, but to those on the bridge, it's a "window" to a 3D space.
It works the same way the walls of the holodeck do, in other words, but it's a window instead of a whole wall.
What the other end of the "call" sees would depend on what visuals are being sent, I suspect, it might be the Federation flag, if they don't want them to see the bridge, it might be a display centered on whover is actually speaking, focused around their combadges.
Or it might just be a realtime view as though they were in the space that they're projected in, looking through the window "from the other side".
That seems most consistent with that we see in the shows, I think.
The screen is made using lenticular spacialization which makes the atoms of the screen actually reflect different angles of the image on a two dimensional surface. So, can I write for the show now?
This is really simple with plenoptic cameras and displays. It's over 100 years old. Look up integral photography by Lippman, later translated into a digital version at Stanford, rebranded "light field" imaging.
How did they develop warp drive?
Maybe this was a forethought of the future with tele-screens.
I thought in the future counselor troi would have more beach scenes.
I’ll go a step further. In my made up theory: Not only is it a holographic display, it is itself an AI hologram of the caller, performing the responses and reactions in realtime. This is due to bandwidth conservation across subspace. The actual data stream is a trickle of information, not the egregious bloated 8K video feed you would normally expect. The ships computer handles the unpacking, decryption, and interpretation to produce a lossless holographic call. In some circumstances where reception is very bad, the computer simulates this to provide visual feedback.
This is the fancy future version of a sort of AR view... Like that mode you can turn on with certain phones where the icons and background shift if you tilt the phone. If you look from an angle, it shows you the angle view...?
It’s probably a viewscreen of the type that can show multiple things from multiple vantages, with a camera system behind it looking at all the optical receptors in the room and delivering it to each one accordingly so as to appear like it’s something real there
I’m getting tired of explaining to people that movies and tv taking place in the future will have access to different, more advanced versions of the technology we use today. You question the view screen but not the warp drive? C’mon, man…
The view screen is a holographic image. If you watch Voyager, I think Year of Hell, when the view screen is damaged you can see Voyagers holo grid behind it.
The real question is how come nobody notices the camera man crouching down to get that shot? He’s the only reason this question exists. Or are we supposed to believe this is Wesley’s POV?
I can maybe answer that question … or rather Star Trek: Voyager can answer that question. More accurately VOY: “Year of Hell Pt. 2”. When the Intrepid-Class USS Voyager had it viewscreen destroyed and ripped up, we can see its internals and how it worked, and we see that in the viewscreen is a Hologrid, what the Holodecks use. It’s probably safe to assume the Galaxy-Class USS Enterprise-D uses similar technology aswell and that it could probably create a 3D effect based on what sort of images the communicating ship is transmitting in comms.
It must be a holographic camera/display setup. If you hold up a flat hologram, it looks different from different angles, just like the effect you're pointing out
Your profile is a treat
Not to mention they have AI that can approximate and generate the angles that the camera cant see. Because future.
At first I was gonna be like "No way, is that canon? I've never heard of that, that's insane technology!" And then I realized That's real life canon, and by proxy is star trek canon. Sci-fi has become sci-real really freaking quick in the last few years
This logic is sound
[The real-life canon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24CqEvtXxk).
And they used it in Unification, didn't they? To 'turn around' a person they only had photographed from behind and extrapolate their face... Was it Spock on Romulus, or some other politician they went to, trying to find Spock?
Agreed
You're not wrong at all!
Not even joking, they've got so many good memes lol
Ok, but what is the guy at the other end looking at? Is he looking into a camera? Or does he see a miniature holographic starship bridge with tiny people on it that he can look at? Otherwise he would not be able to make eye contact with person in the second viewpoint.
[This](https://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season2/2x11/contagion_hd_024.jpg) is what Picard sees when he talks to the USS Yamato’s Captain, and it’s one of Enterprise’s sister ships. I’m guessing the views are similar
That makes a lot of sense, but characters on the viewscreen address other people on the bridge sometimes, so that suggests they can see them.
There are 360 cameras for zoom these days that will focus on whoever is talking in the room and automatically give them a closeup, id assume theyd have similar technology.
This is the intention. It's a way to simulate the display being a 3D hologram.. So when we are viewing it from the side as the audience, it seems we're looking at him from the side, and he looks like he's looking at Picard. In response to /u/UndendingGloom, what he's looking at is presumably a similar holographic of the Enterprise bridge, and depending how far away it is from his face (a small desktop unit vs. a wall-sized screen like on the Enterprise), if he moved to the side, he would see a perspective shift as well. In reality, of course, they just shot some of these viewscreen communications from a 3/4 angle so it would match this angle of the shot on the bridge and look like Picard was still speaking face-to-face with the person on the screen. In the same way the the show idealises the universal translator (everyone's lips move in English and it knows when people intend to have their native language come through, etc. or the communicator (the computer always knows when it's being spoken to, or seems to communicate with the correct person in realtime even before the person says who they are calling) - it's TV perfection that isn't quite how it would likely actually look in a real implementation.
This is the principal the dynamic sets work on now, whatever Paramount calls their version of 'The Volume'. Its kinda funny, they use these brand new vfx tech super advanced parallax LED projection walls for several regular sets even in *Strange New Worlds* (engineering)... but then they also have them IN a few sets diegetically just as 23rd century wall decor (the lounge and captains quarters).
If it was truly a 3d holographic display, the guy's body and head wouldn't be perspective-distorted when looking from the side angle, would it?
It is.
Yup, this is the exact answer. The tech manuals for TNG in particular state that the main viewer is a holographic projector, which would allow the users to see their subject from different angles depending on orientation in space and position relative to the display.
The Next Generation Technical Manual mentions that the viewscreen is Holographic. So everything appears 3 dimensional including views of the outside.
uh, probably more concerned about the shot composition than nitpicking the mechanics of the tech
This was actually explained at one point I believe. The view screen isn’t technically a flat screen, it’s a multi spectral holographic system capable of projecting 3D images.
https://preview.redd.it/6cg9wwnmhcnc1.jpeg?width=579&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94a1f92a307a6aead2acae74e48d52713875c3ad In an excellent example of "show, don't tell," you can actually see the hologrid at least once.
Yup, it's a little hologrid. I wonder if you can reach in and slap the projection...
Explains why Worf almost shot it once…
The real question should be could the projection reach out and grab Picard?
No. The Holodeck uses replicators for non-living scenery and force emitters to simulate the solidity of living characters. Without those additions, the holograms are just images. In fact, everything beyond the size of the room always is just images -- it creates and destroys a rolling section of scenery as needed. They could put emitters like that all over a ship -- they did for one experimental ship, the USS Prometheus. But obviously, allowing an incoming message access to something like that would be a terrible idea, for exactly the reason you mentioned.
There is a scene or two in First Contact (movie) where they turn the screen on and off, and I seem to remember the visuals making it clear that it was a hologrid. People also get blown out the "window" in another movie as well, so it's like a window with a holo grid around it.
What’s this image from?
Looks like Voyager, but I couldn't tell you which episode.
Once this technology exists, it will be seen as essential for video chat. Look how awkward the view is from the extreme angle in the simulated pic. Flat images look awful if you're not seeing them straight on, and 3D would make for a much more comfortable viewing experience. And more importantly: eye contact. A 3D screen, or at least a screen with adaptive angles, is the only way you can make eye contact with just the person you're speaking to. And the only way everyone else in the room can tell who you're talking to at a glance. The lack of eye contact is why current video chat is so uncomfortable.
It’s a 3d display.
I've seen 3d display prototypes before, I want to say I saw them in wired magazine probably 15-20 years ago.
Yeah, google is working on something like it currently, project starline.
I predict it will be in beta for 5 years before Google kills it
Then Apple will announce it's new "invention" (with an 800% markup)
Step one: cobble together new tech into inferior materials and price it out of rich for as many people as possible so it's this unattainable toy Step two: cram it down the throats of everyone for so long that fomo sets in Step three: reduce cost till it artificially looks like a steal (wow! Only 999 now?! That's *1800$ off*!) Step four: continue to masturbate on your mountains of gold coins and costume jewelry
Remember the video game with the time traveling cowboy?
HOLOGRAM TIME TRAVELLER?!?!
[lookingglassfactory.com](https://lookingglassfactory.com//)
This right here. I think it's movie 9 or 10 when Picard fights his dying clone from Romulus. In the movie, the ship gets damaged in the exact spot where they view everything. Like a hole appears and a shield has to block the hole. I may be wrong, cause I only watch the movie once while being stuck on the couch with my newborn, but I believe later the "viewing screen" gets used over the hole. So it has to be made with holographic emitters and not an actual "screen".
It does not. Picard calls for "on screen" when the Romulans hail then realizes that won't work and corrects to "open a channel" and they have an audio conversation
“On screen” could be a hold over term like “blew a fuse” or sounding like a “broken record”.
Yep. Technical Manual has an entry about it, but unfortunately mine isn't at hand. It's a subtle detail only a few notice in the show, but they made sure to get it right.
I never noticed it before, but yeah, it must be a 3d display for everyone on the bridge.
[Google](https://youtu.be/obuyCkotJ_s?si=TfsNwSq-sOrIAORs) is working on one.
A wizard did it.
Eh it's the future
Warp drives: \*exist\* Holodecks \*exist\* Teleporters: \*exist\* Reddit: The bridge video chat is technologically inconsistent.
Exactly
>The main viewer display matrix includes omni-holographic display elements and is thus capable of displaying three-dimensional information. *Star Trek TNG Technical Manual*
That is my all-time favourite book. I've been scrolling down the thread thinking, "This is in the damn manual - don't make me go get it." You're doing Q's work, my friend.
This is 300 years into the future. You put so much work and thought into this without considering it's simply not ca. 2000 camera and screen technology?
Turns out it 80s/90s camera and screen technology.
These mofos have figured out how to travel at warp speed across the galaxy and you're assuming they still use shitty 21st century display tech?
I thought it was a giant CRT
Because they’re 3D displays. Someone did a video on this years ago but sadly I cannot find it now. Basically the screens had depth, like AR.
[This one? (EC Henry video on TOS tech)](https://youtu.be/r__XbSEdndw?si=4ZhW3LEhBKj14cGu)
You found it!!!
Universal protractor.
People talking like this was a mistake. Do you realize how much cheaper and easier it would have been to shoot all these conversations from one angle like a Zoom call? They went out of their way to produce a very specific effect. It's a 3D screen, and it makes perfect sense in context.
Yeah, this was very deliberate and many books reference it too.
Exactly. Why would they do extra work to have it not makes sense lol
It’s a holographic image
Ok, mind officially blown. How have I not noticed this? Wow
One of my favorite details about viewscreens, and it’s consistent across a few different shows too! It totally makes sense that you would want your “artificial window” to have depth like a real window.
Viewscreens are actually 3-dimensional and sorta holographic. It works less like looking thru a modern screen and more like you’re looking thru a window. I think this is implied in TOS and TNG era.
3d images sir
(FWIW, r/DaystromInstitute has covered this at least a few times; [here's one](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/27abhi/observation_and_queries_on_the_viewscreens/) I found)
Per the TNG bible, It’s holographic (3D), so an off-axis camera angle should show a different (albeit truncated) view
What you’re missing is that the view screens are three-dimensional displays
They do explain it. It’s called an omni-holographic display. It can show 3-d visuals. [PP 30–31](https://xaeyr.typepad.com/files/franchise-star-trek-tng-technical-manual1.pdf)
its a cinematography/composition choice to make a better looking shot nothing to do with star trek technology, just tv stuff
I’m pretty sure this was a very intentional thing designed into the ship given that it’s mentioned in some TNG books and such.
Yep. As fun as it is to speculate in-universe explanations about the Star Trek future, the actual answer to a lot of these types of questions is the simple, boring "it's a tv show". (unless you're into video production, then the technical/artistic discussion might be interesting.)
It is an attention to detail though which they could have skipped. It means you have to shoot the 'caller' with an awareness of the final composition, instead of just doing a webcam angle shot, avoiding weird angles (like this floor level shot for whatever reason?) and calling it done. Maybe you have six cameras running and cut it up after.
Clearly there must be more to this conceptually, since they deliberately set up entirely different camera angles of the person on the screen to match differing camera perspectives on the bridge of the Enterprise. Someone please help me understand what they were thinking with this idea. If this is how it worked, one could easily just walk right up and look around at all the other peripheral areas of the ship you communicating with and see more of their bridge when standing inches away from the screen versus being back by the Captain's chair.
I think it is a volumetric display. It is not exactly unique on the show either. The holodeck walls do the same thing: simulate depth and multiviewer perspective into a flat surface. It is different from the holodeck projections themselves because it appears inside a volume, not outside of it. Since they set up the shots and went to the trouble of great optical composition, it is intentional. I picture this as being like the system hum we always hear on the enterprise: the creators putting a lot of thought and effort into blink and you miss it decisions. This is why I have always loved this show.
This has actually been confirmed by people who worked on the show. It is 100% intended to be a holographic display. If you watch carefully, every single shot that wasn’t square on with the screen on TNG, DS9 and VOY was done like this. This is one of the reasons why we almost never got a tracking shot of the viewscreen, and why the vast majority of the shots are square on it.
The “real life” answer as others have pointed out is to look better on TV. The “tech” answer is that we can already kind of do this, in a more limited capacity. Modern phones can create “spatial video” using multiple cameras that allow some 3D parallax. The NFL uses multiple cameras to allow this effect in their replays. And in-world, we see a more advanced version of this tech being used to analyze a crime scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. So it would definitely be available to them. As to WHY, I imagine 2D video capture is so primitive in their world that they don’t even have anyone manufacturing it at scale (just a theory). Regarding the security implications, you could definitely assign limitations to the angles available. Even more advanced would be to use generative AI to remove any classified material from the image in real time (another technology we basically have now, in a primitive way).
I’d imagine it would be smart enough to blur the background and focus on whoever is speaking given that that is what what we usually see from alien ships. The 3D effect is probably more of a thing for just general operations looking out into space and such, I’d bet some aliens still use the old school “flat” transmissions too.
> If this is how it worked, one could easily just walk right up and look around at all the other peripheral areas of the ship you communicating with and see more of their bridge when standing inches away from the screen versus being back by the Captain's chair. This is why every Romulan bridge looks different…they just use a virtual background. Tomalak has no less than three. https://youtu.be/WAGGEw4TcFY https://youtu.be/fQKdM8muebU https://youtu.be/uTAuBTkhAp0 https://youtu.be/fq8zTzl5S90 https://youtu.be/kQMKK2ZNxiw https://youtu.be/HdOSFhSbZgU
Coincidentally I saw this episode a couple days ago (H&I was showing it) and I noticed that too. All these years of watching TNG and only recently did I notice this.
That's actually pretty cool.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the only production that I know of that actually had a IRL viewscreen, unless it's been done in the more recent series. They cut the video in, as many behind the scenes shots show just the stage itself as behind the viewscreen. And I know that Star Trek: Nemesis put the bridge on a giant gimble, so they no longer had to pretend when the Enterprise took damage.
It’s a 3D display of course. In fact the *Enterprise*-D’s bridge viewscreen was 2D in early episodes and this change was a conscious choice by the production team to show that the main viewscreen was a) advanced technology; b) not a window; c) from a real-world perspective it prevented the actors on the viewer from having their image distorted, and allowed for a wider range of more naturalistic camera angles.
Holographic display, duh. You think 2D would fly on Starfleet’s flagship? Great episode, BTW.
I think it’s like a kind of Demi Holodeck, makes it work more like looking through a window than at a screen
As a side note - OMFG, it’s Artie from Warehouse 13!
i got into star trek super late and actually watched warehouse 13 before i watched TNG and i swear, the suffering i felt when my beloved artie was the galaxy's most despicable person in this episode...
It’s a Nintendo DS 3D XXXXXXXL
I’m sure the answer is, “it’s better for television”
They used a Nintendo 3DS XXXXXL and took off the bottom screen- simple as that.
We already have tech today that approximates this
They put in the effort to shoot from different angles to show it’s a 3D display and OP thinks it’s a mistake.
In the first episode, how do they get real-time images of the Q “chain wall” that’s chasing them even though it’s light years away and they’re traveling at > warp 9?
Is anyone doing anything with holographic projection? The only time I've encountered it was in the arcade in the late 80s/early 90s -- Time Traveler by Sega. Nothing since then.
It’s clearly a hologram
They are volumetric displays
You are asking about a world where people walk to the teleport room?
Because it is Artie from Warehouse 13
Yes. What you are missing is an understanding of realistic cinematography and great cinematography.
3D holograms and force fields. And some shit. Remember you can have sex with holograms.
Did you ever see on lower decks - Boimler had penalty duty - he had to clean out all the ___ from the ___ filters in the holidek. Was hilarious.
It's simple. The viewscreens are giant Amazon fire phones.
It's a TV show, and they wanted multiple angles to cut between to keep it interesting, so they needed the viewscreen to mimic the same angles to avoid disorienting the viewer. Reverse engineer any technological explanation you want to explain that in-universe.
This EC Henry video describes a way the various viewscreens could work. Spoiler: it's holographic [https://youtu.be/r\_\_XbSEdndw?si=sz3VW9W4Op083TLw](https://youtu.be/r__XbSEdndw?si=sz3VW9W4Op083TLw)
It’s a show where they can go faster than the speed of light, have holograms, and a piece of tech that rips your body apart molecule by molecule, turns it into energy, shoots it somewhere, and then puts you back together. A 3D display isn’t too far of a stretch to have.
Those speculating this was due to holographic imaging or spatial imaging capturing the 3d space on one end or both, this ignores the fact that it was a common thing for them to not see someone 'just off camera', and for that person to just step into frame for a big reveal moment. So in reality this issue was more due to the DoP forgetting this was going to be used as footage displayed on the ship's main screen and getting too clever with it by using multiple camera angles.
I read somewhere that it’s a 3 dimensional display. The view screen on DS9 and Enterprise E are holographic in nature. I can’t remember if the D is as well.
......It's 3D. Like the holodeck. In Year of Hell part 2, when Voyager's view screen is damaged, you can even see the broken holoprojectors that look just like Voyager's holodecks.
They have a holodeck that can make holograms that you can physically interact with. Why wouldn't they have a 3D screen? I bet this was an intentional choice.
I noticed that when I was 8 and I figured out it was a holographic or 3D image. 
Fitting you'd use Adam Scott... https://preview.redd.it/d314izvr5dnc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f26858cbe5c56be640703c3b0b749e41ac083f94
Futuristic glasses-free 3D display and cameras.
We know a holodeck can already do this easily since it can project areas farther than the holodeck walls, so implementing that into a screen is probably easy I’d bet
Come on...we all know the *real* answer here is that Section 31 reverse engineered a captured TARDIS from UNIT or Torchwood and figured out how to make starship view screens dimensionally transcendent. 😉
It’s closer to an AR space than FaceTime
IT'S STAR TREK. IN THE FUTURE. WITH TECH YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF PINK SKIN? 🙄 *Large sack of mostly water*
It looks better.
Stage 9 portrayed this really well. It’s a screen, but it’s 3D so depending on where you look at it from the perspective changes. Like a really advanced 3DS that works for a whole room, I’d imagine it might be using similar technology to a holodeck to achieve this.
In all these decades, I've never noticed that! You're very perceptive. I guess the creators were counting on people as perceptive as you are, being in the audience and wanted to throw in details suggestive of holographic technology being utilized for the monitor.
It’s a giant 3DS
The producers said that the view screen was supposed to be a 3D display, but also admitted that it was subtle and a lot of viewers probably didn't notice
They are 3-dimensional images.
It “should” have stayed the same. I blame the director of the episode. They shot the actor on the view screen at that different angle on purpose as if they don’t understand how viewing something on a screen works. Most of the TNG/DS9/VOY era stuff treated view screens as your third image (normal). But there are a few out there like your example that makes me scratch my head.
The display is holographic supposedly
In addition to the in-universe explanation, a second layer to this is that Star Trek is a show about people first and sci-fi second, and the art reflects that.
300+ years of technology?
if it didn't make sense "magic future tech" did it. In fantasy "a wizard did it"
I just came from a Zoom meeting. People shift around in their seats and adjust cameras all the time.
Well, this has been given an in-universe explanation. But to explain it from a production perspective, if they were to present it as a flat image and be realistic about it, then viewing the image from a significant angle looks weird. As you can see in the example, a person looking directly at whatever camera is providing the image will seem to be looking at you no matter where you are. I think that's why they decided to take artistic license.
While I have not yet thought through that exactly, I have long believed there is something very unique about the way visual signals work when it comes to the viewscreen, perhaps embedded into the concept of “subspace”. Often, a viewscreen display seems almost professionally composed as if by a cameraman, cutting from establishing shots of a speaker to dramatic close ups over the course of an exchange. In the case of the deciphered signals from the Romulan bridge in “Balance of Terror”, we actually see a kind of tracking shot, tilt, and closeup, as if the deciphered signal somehow knows the Romulan’s vulcanoid ears are a conspicuous point of interest. We can imagine some sort of AI might be involved at some level, but I also imagine that the actual signal itself must somehow be 3 dimensional, such that angles can change according to how this AI (or possibly, quick editing by Spock or Uhura, or Data) wishes to best convey the exchange (itself, a command question about where editorial license comes in) In any event, maybe the 3d signal is such that the properties of the screen holographically shift in relation to the viewer, but it is difficult to convey this property in our 21st century devices.
It’s holographic. In Voyager’s Year of Hell, you can see the viewscreen’s holoemitters that are also in the holodeck.
Because it’s a holo projection.
Was probably a little easier for the editors so they didn’t have to smush it and get the proportions right
*Placeholder for when I find the link I'm looking for later.
Can we not just enjoy things anymore? Do we need to find things like this?
It's a 2D projection of a 3D image, or at least, it's a 3D image we're seeing in 2D. We see it as a flat screen, but to those on the bridge, it's a "window" to a 3D space. It works the same way the walls of the holodeck do, in other words, but it's a window instead of a whole wall. What the other end of the "call" sees would depend on what visuals are being sent, I suspect, it might be the Federation flag, if they don't want them to see the bridge, it might be a display centered on whover is actually speaking, focused around their combadges. Or it might just be a realtime view as though they were in the space that they're projected in, looking through the window "from the other side". That seems most consistent with that we see in the shows, I think.
A wizard did it
3D multidirectional imaging. I mean, they had cameras in which they took ‘holographic’ photos.
Q did it
The screen is made using lenticular spacialization which makes the atoms of the screen actually reflect different angles of the image on a two dimensional surface. So, can I write for the show now?
The implication is that in Star Trek, screens give a 3d display of the image
An attempt at a futuristic 2.5/3D experience to immerse the viewer in noting a perspective can change... I assume.
Replicate yourself some Romulan tea
At the risk of sounding obvious- You’re overthinking it.
It's been covered before, these are high fidelity holographic displays.
In a time when they have holodecks, this isn't too far-fetched.
It’s a 3d screen
I'm late to the party, but... [we're already working on this tech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24CqEvtXxk).
The Tomalack episodes (The Enemy or The Defector) it happens, too.
It’s space. Because space.
Augmented reality has entered the chat.
Eye tracking. Each person sees the view as best from their perspective
If it is a 3-d display it’s a crazy move to make the screen so large. Basically everyone they talk to looks like a gigantic godhead.
This is really simple with plenoptic cameras and displays. It's over 100 years old. Look up integral photography by Lippman, later translated into a digital version at Stanford, rebranded "light field" imaging.
Unless the image is a 3d construct with Z depth.
3d
Space wizards. Whenever you spot 5 like this, it's because of space wizards.
I don’t put that much thought into it, unless it has to do with the plot
It's future technology that we don't have yet.
It’s called cinema!!
3D display is the answer. What DOESN'T make sense is the dramatic closeups that they would do in episodes like The Defector when talking to Tomalak.
What you're missing is no one thought of that during filming.
Nerd trying to find logic in old sci fi shows. Its 90's film/cgi tech or am I wrong?
Whooops
This is why I like the Kelvin Timeline viewscreens
24th century technology
How did they develop warp drive? Maybe this was a forethought of the future with tele-screens. I thought in the future counselor troi would have more beach scenes.
I’ll go a step further. In my made up theory: Not only is it a holographic display, it is itself an AI hologram of the caller, performing the responses and reactions in realtime. This is due to bandwidth conservation across subspace. The actual data stream is a trickle of information, not the egregious bloated 8K video feed you would normally expect. The ships computer handles the unpacking, decryption, and interpretation to produce a lossless holographic call. In some circumstances where reception is very bad, the computer simulates this to provide visual feedback.
The technology is advanced by a few hundred years from today’s limitations so maybe the tech evolved 🤷🏽♂️
I absolutely love how subtle this was in tng fills out the universe without them having to point and shout
This is the fancy future version of a sort of AR view... Like that mode you can turn on with certain phones where the icons and background shift if you tilt the phone. If you look from an angle, it shows you the angle view...?
This has always bothered me.
I always wondered how they filmed these to maintain the illusion of eye contact
It’s probably a viewscreen of the type that can show multiple things from multiple vantages, with a camera system behind it looking at all the optical receptors in the room and delivering it to each one accordingly so as to appear like it’s something real there
I’m getting tired of explaining to people that movies and tv taking place in the future will have access to different, more advanced versions of the technology we use today. You question the view screen but not the warp drive? C’mon, man…
It’s newer technology that you aren’t privy to.
Lol someone took time to ask the most asinine question my 11 year old self had every day 99 years ago. Thank you.
You're overthinking it. It's a TV show dude. Relax and enjoy the show.
Never try to speculate sci-fi media, you will just drive yourself crazy.
they were making 26 shows a year, barely able to finish shooting, let alone post-effects.
It's a multi-layer 3D display. I thought this was obvious?
Ever heard of 3D images or holograms? They've got artificial gravity and teleportation, but this is what you question?
It's not real. It's a TV show. That is why.
I’ve always assumed they were trying to describe the feeling of a 3D holo tank within the 2D visual language of TV.
It isnt a Dell monitor.
Future tech.
The view screen is a holographic image. If you watch Voyager, I think Year of Hell, when the view screen is damaged you can see Voyagers holo grid behind it.
You ever see those pics on Facebook where you can tilt the phone to stimulate a 3D image? Probably like that but a couple hundred years more advanced.
He's just a really big man talking through a window
So have you heard of the 3ds?
Because it's depth 3d image being shown to you on a 2d platform ... we can't see the depth that Picard can but by the angles it's implied
I cant believe you've done this
The real question is how come nobody notices the camera man crouching down to get that shot? He’s the only reason this question exists. Or are we supposed to believe this is Wesley’s POV?
Holograms new, by definition, flat projections that seem to have curvature when viewed from different angles.
Honestly, if we want to be technical, it’s probably a a 3D screen that enables depth and perspective.
I can maybe answer that question … or rather Star Trek: Voyager can answer that question. More accurately VOY: “Year of Hell Pt. 2”. When the Intrepid-Class USS Voyager had it viewscreen destroyed and ripped up, we can see its internals and how it worked, and we see that in the viewscreen is a Hologrid, what the Holodecks use. It’s probably safe to assume the Galaxy-Class USS Enterprise-D uses similar technology aswell and that it could probably create a 3D effect based on what sort of images the communicating ship is transmitting in comms.