<title>Future of autostereoscopic electronic displays</title>

Abstract

Recently there has been significant activity in the attempt to develop autostereoscopic electronic displays. An interesting variation of the panoramagram, the moving slit technique, was described by Collender in the early seventies, and there have been various new types of volumetric display techniques, such as the Spacegraph acoustical mirror and the Texas Instruments laser scanned revolving surface. Lately liquid crystal technology has been employed by NTT and Dimension Technologies, offering the promise of a true three- dimensional display without the need for individual viewing devices. There are fundamental considerations with regard to presentation of visual information that provide constraints with regard to making such products competitive compared with current field-sequential electronic displays. These field-sequential displays have been successful in the marketplace and provide a standard against which the performance of new products must be measured. Products like CrystalEyesR allow any number of spectators to view the image, and have a high degree of compatibility with the present computer graphics and video infrastructures -- an important issue for manufacturers integrating such products into, for example, workstations, and for the user in terms of price and ease of use.