Japanese company Sharp is experimenting with a technique for creating
three-dimensional TV that can be watched by more than one person at a time and
does not require viewers to wear special spectacles (European patent application
786 912).
The screen displays two pictures but is covered with a grid of vertical lens
strips which ensure that the left eye sees only the left perspective, and vice
versa. Until now this technique has worked only if a single viewer watched from
a precise position.
By arranging the lens strips so that their vertical edges physically overlap,
Sharp’s system allows several people to watch. When a viewer’s eye is wrongly
positioned, it does not see both perspectives, it sees neither.
