This article was taken from the November 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Holographic TV may remain a distant prospect, but the Media Lab's Camera Culture group is developing the next best thing: screens capable of producing glasses-free 3D images that can be seen from various angles. "We want something that's commercially viable in the near-term," says Douglas Lanman, one of the team behind two prototypes. "So we're using something that's commonly available: multi-layered LCD panels."
To expand the viewing angle, the group combined three layers of LCD panels, each one capable of creating pixel-by-pixel light-filtering patterns. These can refresh 120 times per second, thanks to a specially tailored algorithm, allowing for sophisticated manipulation of the backlight to display a series of different images. Since the human eye cannot perceive flickering at such a high rate, the viewer sees a coherent, high-resolution 3D image. And because the system is programmed to project pairs of offset images in various directions, the viewer sees 3D images from multiple perspectives within a 20-degree viewing angle. A second prototype uses two LCD panels with a sheet of lenses between them to refract light left and right. With this version, the viewing angle is expanded to 50-degree, with little resolution loss.
Lanman is cagey about when these prototypes will come to market: "Our job is to demonstrate capability," he says. "But I'd say the two-layer version has the best chance of reaching the consumer."
Hopefully those 3D goggles will soon be forever consigned to the back of the sofa.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
