Auto-stereoscopic mobile 3D display
This project (mobile 3D) is a collaborative project between Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE) and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., developing novel methods in achieving full resolution auto-stereoscopic (glass-free) mobile display. The developed mobile display is based on the sub-pixel level phase modulation of a switchable liquid crystal (LC) micro-lens array as shown in Figure 1, which can be switched back to a conventional two-dimensional (2D) display. The full scale (4 inch) device aligns with the display panel perfectly at sub-pixel level and switches the entire display area uniformly with no distortion and no colour separation.
The development of high quality liquid crystal micro-lens and demonstration of the technology on real mobile displays have both been published in the journal Optics Express. Six patents applications have been filed on application of such technology, one was granted.
Figure 1: The proposed multiplexing scheme using interlaced spatial and temporal beam steering to obtain the maximum resolution for an auto-stereoscopic display. The multiplexing operation can be described in two steps: (a) Frame 1 – odd sub-pixels deflected to the right eye and even sub-pixels deflected to the left eye. (b) Frame 2 – odd sub-pixels deflected to the left eye and even sub-pixels deflected to the right eye. The phase pattern is shifted by one sub-pixel resulting in the swap of steering directions.