P3D Re: optics of stereo viewers

[GBMars <GBMars@xxxxxxx>]

Michael Kersenbrock wrote:

>As to the flat panel displays, I suspect a significant number do use just
that 
>when they use their laptop computers which are VERY commonly used.  I only 
>mentioned that they were starting to invade the desktop for those who didn't 
>notice their coming.

Furthermore, we can all expect to be seeing more and more LCD displays,
and sooner than you might think:  There are several "LCD monitors" available
now in the $1.5K to $3K range.  These are units that plug into a standard VGA
card.  Not only is the cost of LCD panels dropping, but standards are forming
which will allow substantial further reduction in price by going to a direct
digital connection instead of the analog RGB used by color CRTs.  There are
many factors driving this move, probably the biggest being the convenience of
much smaller, lighter LCD.

I wonder if it is really a problem that LCDs are generally small?  I mean,
people
buy large monitors to get higher resolution, but that doesn't apply (much) to
LCDs.  If you could have 1280 x 960 (or 1024) pixels in a 12 inch display
what's
the problem?  I know - those of us over 40 can't focus close enough to see
pixels that tiny!

Anyway, what this all means to stereo is mixed:  Larry Berlin might be happy
that LCDs have virtually zero geometric distortion (unlike CRTs), but since
LCDs use polarization to turn pixels on and off, the current LCS schemes for
sequential stereo wouldn't work!  That's really too bad, because in other
respects these things would be great for stereo:  In addition to the geometric
distortion, CRTs suffer from bad ghosting with LCS glasses due to the long
persistence of the phosphors (worse, the different colors have very different
decay times).  Of course, the perfect alignment of pixels on an LCD would
make a lenticular display quite possible - in fact, I've seen this done with
full motion stereo video.

Greg M.


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