A new type of display from Microsoft produces multiple images and tracks the viewers’ eyes.

Today’s 3-D movies are far more spectacular than the first ones screened more than 50 years ago, but watching them–both at the movie theater and at home–still means donning a pair of dorky, oversized glasses. Now a new type of lens developed by researchers in Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group could help make glasses-free 3-D displays more practical.

Split screen: Microsoft’s 3-D screen can project multiple images simultaneously. Here it is projecting a block of red and a block of blue onto a screen two meters away. Credit: Microsoft

The new lens, which is thinner at the bottom than at the top, steers light to a viewer’s eyes by switching light-emitting diodes along its bottom edge on and off. Combined with a backlight, this makes it possible to show different images to different viewers, or to create a stereoscopic (3-D) effect by presenting different images to a person’s left and right eye. “What’s so special about this lens is that it allows us to control where the light goes,” says Steven Bathiche, director of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group.

3-D technology has seen a renaissance recently. Thanks to the success of movies like Coraline, Up, and Avatar, Hollywood is spending more money than ever to give audiences a stereoscopic experience. And electronics manufacturers are racing to replicate the 3-D theater experience in the home. The market for 3-D-capable televisions is expected to grow from 2.5 million sets shipped in 2010 to 27 million in 2013, according to the research firm DisplaySearch. However, the glasses required to watch 3-D video is a turnoff for many would-be early adopters.

At the Society for Information Display International Symposium in Seattle last month, companies showed off 3-D displays that don’t require glasses. These sets often use lenticular lenses, which are integrated into the display and project different images in two fixed directions. But a viewer needs to stand in designated zones to experience a 3-D effect; otherwise the screen becomes an out-of-focus blur.

Microsoft’s prototype display can deliver 3-D video to two viewers at the same time (one video for each individual eye), regardless of where they are positioned. It can also shows ordinary 2-D video to up to four people simultaneously (one video for each person). The 3-D display uses a camera to track viewers so that it knows where to steer light toward them. The lens is also thin, which means it could be incorporated into a standard liquid crystal display, says Bathiche.

MULTIMEDIA

Watch Microsoft’s new display in action (48 sec video) here: http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=579 .

original post: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/25524/?a=f