An autostereoscopic display providing comfortable viewing conditions and a high degree of telepresence

Research and development on 3-D displays make great progress and even autostereoscopic 3-D displays are on the verge of being put onto the market. The main market within the near future will be, besides entertainment applications, the field of multimedia desktop displays. The use of autostereoscopic displays makes it possible to watch 3-D images without special glasses. Particularly in communication applications dark spectacles hamper natural face-to-face communication. This paper presents a concept for a realization of a 3-D desktop display which was developed at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute. In this concept a collimation optic was combined with an autostereoscopic display unit. In the past, collimation optics were usually used in head mounted devices. Only a few realizations of autostereoscopic displays are known, which combine autostereoscopic technologies with collimation optics. Studies performed at NASA's Langley Research Center showed that the usable volume of depth can extend to large values when a collimation optic is integrated in a stereoscopic display. Results of our work showed that a "puppet theater effect" is not perceptible when a collimated display is used. Two autostereoscopic prototype setups suitable for communication applications were realized that avoid the disadvantages of most common stereoscopic displays.