A Parallax Barrier Technique for Autostereoscopic Displays

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project will be used to investigate an optical system to be used with LCDs or plasma displays to produce 2D/3D switch-able autostereoscopic displays which produce images possessing the full resolution of display. Various companies have begun to market autostereoscopic displays. Such displays are encountering a market barrier in some applications because they achieve their 3D effect by sacrificing resolution. They divide the pixels on the display between a right and left eye image, thus leaving each image with half the resolution of the flat panel itself. The proposed technology will produce autostereoscopic images without sacrificing resolution. The objective of the project is to establish the feasibility of the autostereoscopic imaging concept, to identify the best configuration for the optics, and to determine the feasibility of using the concept on LCD and plasma displays. To accomplish this objective, small test optics will be created and evaluated, measurements of relevant properties of representative plasma and LCD panels will be made, and a development path for the next phase of the project will be identified. The project has the potential to produce a practical high resolution flat panel autostereoscopic displays suitable for high resolution 3D imaging applications. The direct commercial potential of the projects lies in autostereoscopic products that will be manufactured using this technology. Such display products will find widespread use in scientific and medical visualizations applications, industrial inspection, telerobotic and other remote vision applications. Consumer based applications may include electronic commerce and computer gaming. L