Now, view 3-D delights sans the pesky specs

WASHINGTON - Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group has unveiled a new lens that could soon revolutionize glasses-free 3-D displays.

The lens, thinner at the bottom than at the top, steers light to a viewer’s eyes by switching light-emitting diodes along its bottom edge on and off.

Coupled with a backlight, this makes it possible to present different images to different viewers, or to create a stereoscopic (3-D) effect by showing different images to a person’s left and right eye.

“What’s so special about this lens is that it allows us to control where the light goes,” Technology Review quoted Steven Bathiche, the director of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group, as saying.

Microsoft’s prototype display can deliver 3-D video to two viewers at the same time (one video for each individual eye), regardless of where they are positioned.

It can also show ordinary 2-D video to up to four people at the same time (one video for each person).

The 3-D display uses a camera to track viewers which enables it to steer light toward them.

The lens is thin and could thus be used in a standard liquid crystal display, said Bathiche.icrosoft’s wedge lens is about 11 millimeters thick at its top, tapering down to about six millimeters at the bottom.

A traditional lens in a projector sits between a point of light and its focal point - the spot where the light is focused.

This is why viewer-tracking 3-D systems are usually so bulky.

However, the design of the wedge lens overcomes this problem, according to Bathiche.

He explained: “Instead of having light travel in air, it travels within the lens,” he says. “It allows us to compress the distance between the projector and the screen.” (ANI)