Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Watching 3D Without the Glasses

Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group (APG) has designed a lens that could help make it possible to watch three-dimensional (3D) movies without glasses. The lens is thinner at the bottom than at the top, a design that steers light to a viewer's eyes by switching light-emitting diodes along its bottom edge on and off. When combined with a backlight, the switching diodes make it possible to show different images to different viewers, or to create a 3D effect by presenting different images to a viewer's left and right eye. "What's so special about this lens is that it allows us to control where the light goes," says APG's Steven Bathiche. Microsoft's display can deliver 3D video to two viewers at the same time no matter where they are positioned. The 3D display uses a camera to track viewers so it knows where to steer the light. The lens design, which includes a rounded, thicker end, dictates how the light bounces around and when and where it can escape, Bathiche says. He says the lens could replace the traditional backlight in a liquid-crystal display to create a glasses-free 3D display.

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