0-7803-6301-9/00 $10.00 © 2000 IEEE pp.226-227

3D graphic cards programmable in Open GL are commercially available today. But the presentation of images on the screen itself is 2 dimensional yet or needs the use of polarization glasses for a 3D presentation. Autostereoscopic systems are known which need additional expensive hardware components [1], [2]. There have been presented also multi user autostereoscopic monitors which are emitting simultaneously a multiple of image views on special screens – up to 100 views [3], [4]. But the real time performance is not yet solved economically.

A one-screen solution of an autostereoscopic adaptive 3D system will be presented at the conference.

The new improvements of the autostereoscopic system

The principle of the Position-adaptive Autostereoscopic Monitor (PAM) has been presented and described at the ICCE last year. Since that time the real time performance of 3D graphic cards using vector orientated image processing function has improved remarkably. This allows us to realize a very advantageous feature of 3D image processing: The autostereoscopic panoramic presentation of 3D scenes on a multiple flat panel display being mounted side by side. This contribution presents an autostereoscopic solution which substitutes software processes for some of the hardware components shown in [1]. In addition the new graphic card software solution offers the possibility of a flexible multi- screen true view 3D image generation for TFT screens being manually adjusted by swivels into a most comfortable position – while the true 3D view is adapted automatically according to the detected head position of the user by an integrated optical head tracker. Future systems will be designed especially for 3D games. A further development is planned for medical applications in computer tomography and tele-3D surgery using high performance and high reliable 3D image processing and transmission systems.

The optical principle of the autostereoscopic 3D view is already described in the references. There are given or generated two images of objects according to two eye positions of the observer. Pixel columns of the right and left image are displayed alternately and they are separated for the eyes by lenticular glasses or by simple barrier stripe masks being put direct in front of the display surface – if the 3D mode is switched on. An easily applied calibration procedure guaranties the correct view. When the observer changes his viewing point the positions and distances of the right/left pixel stripes are adjusted by software on the display. Thus no movements of the masks or glasses are necessary anymore. In this way affordable installations are possible by an add-on concept for everybody having got a PC or laptop with a digital TFT display.

It is also possible to run 3D games without a head tracker, if the user does not leave some predefined positions in front of the monitor. In addition to this a multi-screen system can be built up, too – if the suitable graphic board is installed having available a digital DVI interface.

A person-adaptive autostereoscopic multi- screen 3D system (PAMS) has been introduced and explained. A one-screen laptop model demonstrates the adaptation features. A multi-screen model can be demonstrated at the IPM laboratories. A compact realization is planned using a special additional graphic board which does supplementary optical head tracking processing on the base of integrated web cams. This board is connected with the PCI bus and can also be used for image transmission purposes. Special high reliability extensions will allow a wide high performance introduction of 3D PAMS for medical applications.

[1] Hentschke, Herrfeld, Andiel, Hildebrand: Person adaptive autostereoscopic monitors (PAM). Proceedings of the ICCE, June 2000, Los Angeles, pp. 226-227.

[2] Schwerdner: Beitrag in Displays

[3] Hentschke, Herrfeld, Kreuzer, Eidenschink, Schmitz: Hologram Display Model. Proceedings of the ICCE, June 1999, Los Angeles, pp. 130-131.

[4] N.A. Dodgsen, J.R. Moore, S.R. Lang, G. Martin, P. Canepa: A 50" time multiplexed autostereoscopic display. Proceedings of the SPIE Vol. 3957 (2000), 0277-786X.

Fig. 1: Processing and information flow diagram of the 3D multi-screen system.