The Wedge Lens in action

Yes, the holy grail of 3D footage viewing — viewing without the glasses. We love 3D, yes we do. But we hate them glasses, oh how we hate them. So here’s a solution from the Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT]  Applied Sciences Group — beaming two separate images to two each eye. Although this approach has been tried before, this solution from the Microsoft ASG is slightly different.

The ASG’s solution involves a special lens that projects two different images to the viewers eyes, thus approximating how things work in real life and creating the illusion of watching a 3D object. This new lens is thinner at the bottom as compared to the top and emits light towards the viewer’s eyes by switching LED’s on and off at the base of the lens. Since it is projecting different images altogether, it can also project normal 2D images and show different images to different viewers.

Of course, the viewer who is watching the 3D footage, is not going to remain still. So the ASG employs a viewer tracking system to solve that problem. Much as that sounds like a dystopian surveillance system, it merely tracks the viewers gaze to self-adjust and maintain the 3D projection at the right angles to hit both eyes simultaneously.

Although we have seen no-glasses-necessary 3D solutions before, those required you to position yourself in one specific position throughout the viewing. Microsoft ASG’s solution makes it possible to shuffle around and still maintain a viewable quality 3D video. This is of course thanks to the viewer tracking system that adjusts itself to make up for the movement in the viewer.

The wedge lens used by the ASG allows the light to be controlled within the lens and not through focusing lens like a projector. So the viewer tracking system becomes much more compact.

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