June 2003

Prototype

Continued from page 2

By Technology Review

Flat-Screen 3-D

Father and son inventors Paul and Ilan Kleinberger have developed a flat-screen 3-D display that eliminates the flicker, low resolution, and bulky glasses that detract from other 3-D methods. 3-D effects are created by showing slightly different images to each eye. At startup 3ality in Jerusalem, Israel, the Kleinbergers use their own software to combine left- and right-eye image data so that each pixel on a liquid-crystal display contains the information for both eyes. 3ality adds an extra liquid-crystal layer that "twists" the resulting light, giving a different polarization to each eye's image. That way, a viewer wearing lightweight polarizing glasses gets an uninterrupted, full-resolution image for each eye. 3ality has built prototypes in cooperation with the U.S. Army; company president Yosh Mantinband says the displays should be ready to market by 2005.