MIT Advances Glasses-free 3D TV with 3 Layer LCDs

photoxels

12 years ago

3D TVs were all the rage last year — or so the manufacturers wished. But wearing a pair of 3D glasses was always the weak link in mass adoption of the technology. If we can’t find the TV remote, what is the chance we would find the glasses?

Now, the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture has innovated with a holograph that is produced similarly to the one in the Nintendo 3DS, except that it uses an additional extra 3rd layer LCD screen (Nintendo uses 2 layered LCD screens). Coupled that with today’s high speed graphics chips and compression algorithms similar to those used in digital cameras and they have the technology for a pretty convincing glasses-free 3D TV.

How far are we from mass adoption of this newest 3D technology in consumer products? Gregg Favalora, a principal at the engineering consultancy Optics for Hire and co-chair of the SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Applications Conference, thinks it’s very near:

“It’s definitely suitable for commercial applications, because each component is commonplace, and it sounds easy to manufacture, so this ought to be something that a consumer-electronics company would license,” Favalora adds. “Honestly, this is a really big deal.”