Depth-fused 3D (DFD) display with multiple viewing zones

Abstract

A new depth-fused 3-D (DFD) display for multiple users is presented. A DFD display, which consists of a stack of layered screens, is expected to be a visually comfortable 3-D display because it can satisfy not only binocular disparity, convergence, accommodation, but also motion parallax for a small observer displacement. However, the display cannot be observed from an oblique angle due to image doubling caused by the layered screen structure, so the display is applicable only for single-observer use. In this paper, we present a multi-viewing-zone DFD display using a stack of a see-through screen and a multi-viewing-zone 2-D display. We used a film, which causes polarization-selective scattering, as the front screen, and an anisotropic scattering film for the rear screen. The front screen was illuminated by one projector, and the screen displayed an image at all viewing angles. The rear screen was illuminated by multiple projectors from different directions. The displayed images on the rear screen were arranged to be well overlapped for each viewing direction to create multiple viewing zones without image doubling. This design is promising for a large-area 3-D display that does not require special glasses because the display uses projection and has a simple structure.