MEX

Consumer research consistently finds glasses are one of the main barriers to adoption of 3D displays. The inconvenience of having to find the glasses, potential discomfort of wearing them for long periods and the strange social dynamic they create when watching videos with friends add up to a significant stumbling block.

This is particularly acute with mobile devices, where willingness to wear special glasses to view 3D content is even lower.

Toshiba has recently been showing glass-less 3D displays in 12 inch and 20 inch variations, which it plans to bring to market shortly. The video below by Diginfo TV has more info:

Toshiba’s REGZA system uses an image processing algorithm to create, in real time, 9 different views of the same image. These 9 shots are then combined to create a 3D effect without the need for glasses and viewable from a wide range of angles (something existing 3D glass-less displays struggle with). It can do this from as few as 2 video streams, allowing early 3D content to be easily scaled up to the new system.

The technology is not yet ready for handheld mobile devices such as smartphones (most likely due to processing power requirements), but Toshiba is already showing a prototype laptop with a display which can switch between 2D and 3D modes depending on the kind of content being viewed.

‘Identify ways 3D can enrich the user experience with visual depth‘ is 1 of 6 MEX Pathway topics at the next MEX event in London on 30 Nov – 01 Dec. Toshiba is also a MEX sponsor, although will be addressing a different Pathway at the event, focusing on Pathway #2, entitled ‘Research the implications of supporting more than one screen from a single device‘.