3D technology in theater was quite a big revolution. However, it seems that the phenomenon is beginning to wane. Researchers are trying to find new ways to revive the technology. One of those ways may be glasses-free 3D.
Watching glasses-free 3D on a TV is not a new concept, but that hasn’t been true for movie theaters. It is indeed difficult to create the same parallax effect for everyone, whether they’re up front or in the back.
But those difficulties have been surpassed: researchers from the MIT and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science co-developed a Cinema 3D tech that allows you to see the film without glasses.
Their technology is simply called “Cinema 3D”. It is a glasses-free 3D display system for movie theaters.
How it works
The method relies on the fact that theaters have a precise set-up and that viewers sit in a more or less fixed position the whole time.
Cinema 3D uses an array of mirror and lenses to make the 3D effect viewable from any seat in the theater.
Cinema 3D encode multiple parallax barriers in one display, this way, each viewer sees a parallax barrier adapted to their position. The range of views is then reproduced across the theater by a series of mirrors and lenses. In a regular 3-D cinema only one barrier is used.
This new system can overcome the flaw of the current display which is the poor resolution caused by its try to cover a wide angle of view. Contrariwise, Cinema 3D, delivers a narrow range of angular image to each viewer.
When will it be available ?
The technology still has a long way to go and is currently not market-ready. Effectively, the prototype is just barely larger than a pad of paper and researchers have to determine if it’s financially possible to recreate it on the scale of a theater.
But it is quite a certainty that it will attract 3D fans back to the cinema.
Mikael Corica
Etudiant en Master 2 Commerce Électronique.
Titulaire d’une licence Administration Economique et Sociale obtenue à la faculté de droit de Mulhouse et d’une première année de Master en Responsabilité Sociale et Environnementale.
Passionné de jeux videos et de nouvelles technologies.
Porte un réel intérêt aux objets connectés et à l’industrie mobile.
