Frequently Asked Questions - MultiView Displays
How does glasses-free viewing work?
3D displays use a special 3D filter array to project different perspectives of a scene into different view directions. In this way, the eyes of viewers see different perspectives of the scene and perceive the displayed content in three dimensions.
Why are multiple views required?
A 3D display needs to use at least two different views, one for each eye of the observer, to present a scene in three dimensions. MultiView autostereoscopic displays differ from other techniques in that they do not require the user to use special glasses and that they can be viewed by a whole group of observers simultaneously. This is why 3D displays operate with more than 2 views.
How can I get multiple views of a scene?
Our Partner Newsight has developed an extensive suite of programs and best-practice approaches for this. Existing 2D material can be simply converted to MultiView material. The Newsight PPTK (Post Production ToolKit) is able to automatically transform stereoscopic 3D material into MultiView data. This is also the recommended approach for live recordings and video works. Finally, for animations, Newsight has developed special plug-ins for common animation programs enabling direct output to multiple views.
Can I move in front of the screen?
Yes, you can. Due to the multiple views projected into the wide field-of-view, there is always the freedom of movement for viewers. This is the great advantage of MultiView autostereoscopic displays, compared, for example, to stereoscopic displays, which require you to use either glasses or stay fixed in a certain position to see 3D. Head-tracked stereoscopic displays can follow your movement, but the difficulty to track multiple users increases with the number of users making head-tracked displays for arbitrary numbers of simultaneous viewers currently a daunting task. Only MultiView autostereoscopic displays allow several viewers to move freely and share their experience.
Can 3D displays be combined into Video Walls?
We can support up to 12 displays synchronized in "video wall" configurations of DLP cubes or flat panel displays. These video walls can be really of any configuration at all...they can be 12 displays in a straight line, side-by-side, or arranged in a 4x3 matrix in a video wall. Whether and how standard LCD or DLP displays are used depends on a number of factors:
- Pop: The only configuration that will give true pop
is a video wall consisting of DLP cubes (or any displays that do not
have appreciable borders). The DLP cubes we use have only 1-2mm
borders so that when you put them together in a cube wall, the borders
do not stand out and therefore do not counteract the outscreen
effect. We have gotten very large outscreen effects from video
walls. 10 - 12 feet and more is common.
LCD displays generally have fairly large borders on the order of 10-20mm. When you put these together in the wall configuration and display an image over the entire matrix of displays, you will destroy any pop effect due to the "jailhouse effect." That is, the display borders prevent outscreen effect by effectively stopping the pop at the display border. - Design of installation: The installation of these wall systems generally needs to be permanent or semi-permanent, especially for the DLP cubes. It takes a couple of engineers at least a day to setup and adjust these systems. These systems are very heavy and require floors that will bear the weight. Moving these systems is a major operation as it requires the engineers to take down and setup again.
- Design of content: The content can be designed for both standard video walls or exotic arbitrary configurations. In addition to the standard video walls, "fishtank" and "random" presentations can be realized. Special content could create the illusion of looking into a fishtank constructed of 4 displays arranged in a cube. Special content can also be created, for example, with arbitrarily placed displays, to have a character throw an object from one display to another. The pop effect in these cases would be limited to one display at a time, but the displays are synchronized and so you still have a large-scale show.
What does it take to make a 3D display in portrait mode?
Hecate Newtech's way of doing sub-pixel addressing creates views from groups of horizontal sub-pixels. In a full-HD display there are 1920x3 or 5760 sub-pixels. If we map 8 views onto the 5760 horizontal sub-pixels, we have 720 8 sub-pixel units, each sub-pixel with a single view.
LCD panels are manufactured for standard applications and most of the time horizontally oriented or landscape mode which means that the RGB sub-pixel pattern is also horizontally oriented. In 2D digital signage, landscape mode displays are often rotated 90 degrees to get a portrait mode monitor and this is fine for 2D. A 3D display made with a rotated full-HD panel would have 1920/8 or 240 8 sub-pixel units, giving this display a much lower resolution.
To make a 3D display in portrait mode, a portrait mode LCD panel is required with the RGB sub-pixel structure oriented horizontally in portrait mode. This type of panel is used often in smaller-sized LCD panels such as mobile displays. One example is the LCD panel in the Apple iPhone.