Microsoft No Glasses Required

Chris Sheldrake

Interesting news that Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group has developed a new lens that lets you watch three-dimensional content without the need for 3D glasses.

This new lens is thinner at the bottom than at the top and steers light to a viewer’s eyes via LEDs along its bottom edge.

The 3D display then uses a camera to track viewers so that it knows where to steer the light. This idea isn’t new, but the required microprocessor power is now affordable and small enough to pull it off on a large scale.

Various companies of course have shown off 3D displays that don’t require glasses BUT those often use lenticular lenses, which are integrated into the display and project different images in two fixed directions – as a result, the viewer needs to be in a designated zone to experience 3D.

Microsoft’s prototype display on the other hand can deliver 3D video to two viewers at the same time by presenting different images to their left and right eyes (one video for each) regardless of where they actually are.


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