Microsoft creates glasses-free 3D technology

Existing 3D screens that do not require glasses, including Nintendo’s recently launched 3DS handheld console, can only be viewed from specific angles.

But the new technology from Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group in Redmond, Washington, uses cameras to track viewers’ positions and alter the angle of projection. Sending different images to viewers’ right and left eyes creates the 3D effect.

‘The technology is scalable and applicable to all device sizes from mobile phones to laptops to large walls,’ Stevie Bathiche, the group’s research director, told The Engineer. ‘The approach stays low cost even on very big screens.’

The system uses a wedge-shaped lens to steer light from movable light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to the viewers’ eyes. Light enters at the thinner, bottom end of the lens and bounces around until reaching the desired angle and emerging from the front of the lens.

A camera at the bottom of the lens tracks the viewers by collecting light coming the other way through the lens and the angle of the LEDs changes to correspond to the viewers’ movements.