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Stereoscopic projection mapping (PM) allows a user to see a three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated (CG) object floating over physical surfaces of arbitrary shapes around us using projected imagery. However, the current stereoscopic PM technology only satisfies binocular cues and is not capable of providing correct focus cues, which causes a vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC). Therefore, we propose a multifocal approach to mitigate VAC in stereoscopic PM. Our primary technical contribution is to attach electrically focus-tunable lenses (ETLs) to active shutter glasses to control both vergence and accommodation. Specifically, we apply fast and periodical focal sweeps to the ETLs, which causes the “virtual image” (as an optical term) of a scene observed through the ETLs to move back and forth during each sweep period. A 3D CG object is projected from a synchronized high-speed projector only when the virtual image of the projected imagery is located at a desired distance. This provides an observer with the correct focus cues required. In this study, we solve three technical issues that are unique to stereoscopic PM: (1) The 3D CG object is displayed on non-planar and even moving surfaces; (2) the physical surfaces need to be shown without the focus modulation; (3) the shutter glasses additionally need to be synchronized with the ETLs and the projector. We also develop a novel compensation technique to deal with the “lens breathing” artifact that varies the retinal size of the virtual image through focal length modulation. Further, using a proof-of-concept prototype, we demonstrate that our technique can present the virtual image of a target 3D CG object at the correct depth. Finally, we validate the advantage provided by our technique by comparing it with conventional stereoscopic PM using a user study on a depth-matching task.

We have reported highly transparent color liquid crystal display using newly developed scattering-type liquid crystal without employing color filter and polarizers. We introduce improving optical performance about 4-inch display in advance of upsizing from 4-inch to 12.3-inch. At first, we have improved optical properties by optimizing panel structure, materials and fabrication process for the new model 4-inch display. It has 2x luminance and 2x contrast ratio of the previous model. Furthermore, we tried to increase the panel size to expand possible use case. We succeeded in increasing the panel size by minimizing panel electric load and improving panel driving scheme. This newly developed 12.3-inch transparent display shows high transmittance (87 %) and high contrast ratio (32 to 1).

A time-multiplexed stereoscopic display with a wide color gamut is fabricated and introduced in this paper. It comprises a scanning backlight unit (SBLU), a 120Hz liquid crystal display (LCD) panel and a pair of LCD shutter glasses equipped with two switching lens (Manufactured by NVIDIA, Model: 3D VISION 2). We use sectional light guide plates to compress the light angle. We use blue LEDs (Domain wavelength: 450nm) to replace the traditional phosphor white LEDs used in the backlight. The blue LEDs are fixed on the edges of the sectional light guide plates, and the quantum dot-polymer (QDP) film is placed on the surface of sectional plates. The SBLU and auxiliary glasses could work together with the LCD panel. All of these components can be controlled by the vertical synchronization signal transmitted from the graphics card. The color gamut of our prototype is improved. According to ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 (Rec.2020), the color gamut is widely extended to 77.61%. The display's ability to express color has been improved by using quantum dot (QD) material. The display brightness through the switching lens is about 120 nit. The crosstalk decreases to about 0.9%.

We optimise a new liquid crystal mixture with wide nematic range, high birefringence (Δn), high resistivity, moderate dielectric anisotropy (∆e) and relatively low rotational viscosity for augmented reality display applications. High Δn and large Δe allow a thin cell gap (d ≈ 1.5 μm) to be employed in a reflective liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) device to achieve 2π phase change at 5 V and 2.87 ms average phase-to-phase response time at 40°C without complicated overdrive circuitry. Such a fast response time enables an LCoS panel to achieve 240 Hz frame rate for field sequential colour operation to avoid image flickering.

The field sequential modulation of a Nd:YVO4/MgO:PPLN intra-cavity, frequency doubling green laser was studied. The modulation frequency was set at 1 kHz and the duty cycle was changed from 20% to CW operation. It was shown that the quasi-phase matched (QPM) temperature decreases with an increase of the modulation duty cycle, and in turn causing the peak efficiency to rise. It was found that the temperature change in MgO:PPLN and the thermal lens effect in Nd:YVO4 crystal were the respective origins of these observed experimental phenomena.

A time-dependent display color simulation method is proposed. For the time-dependent simulation, we applied our behavioral model of liquid crystals (LC). The model provides the transient response characteristics of the LC. The color simulation of a twisted nematic active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) adopting a field sequential (FS) driving method is possible when combining the transient LC responses with periodically operating red-greenblue (RGB) light emitting diodes (LEDs). By modifying the gate start pulse of the conventional AMLCD, we created a virtual AMLCD driven by the FS method. The color performance of the panel was measured at five vertical positions, and the results showed that the RGB LEDs should be driven by a 70% duty parameter and a 50% shifting parameter to minimize line-to-line color characteristic deviations in the AMLCD panel. By using the proposed simulation method, it is possible to find the optimal FS driving condition for any display with arbitrary response characteristics to exhibit the best color performance.

Reflective blue phase liquid crystal display (BPLCD) is a promising candidate for field sequential colour displays with reflective liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS). However, the issue of high operation voltage still hinders its widespread applications. We propose a reflective BPLCD with double-side concave-curved electrode and research its operation voltage and electro-optic characteristics in simulation, which is compared to the transmissive mode. The effect of double-side electrodes on horizontal electric field and operation voltage is analysed. The improvement of concave-curved electrodes on reflectance is discussed. A reflective BPLCD has two times the optical path difference compared to the transmissive mode. By using double-side concave-curved electrodes, the reflectance increased by 23% and the operation voltage reduced by 32% compared to the traditional in-plane switching mode. This work enables BPLC to be integrated with reflective LCoS.

We propose a novel pixel circuit using source-follower structure to be independent of frequency effect of blue-phase liquid crystal displays (BPLCDs). Simulation results indicated that required gray-level-voltages across the BPLC could be achieved accurately when a proper threshold voltage of the driving TFT was chosen. We also successfully fabricated a 12.7-inch prototype BPLCD using the proposed pixel circuit driven with a field-sequential-color method of 240 Hz.

Newer methods for treating amblyopia use shutter glasses to occlude the strong eye.Needed is a computer-based system to perform liquid crystal shuttering in laboratory and clinical settings, possibly also for home use.In order to achieve good timing performance in a bidirectional system under Windows, a multithreading programming technique with data protection is needed.We developed software based on multithreading under LabWindows/CVI (National Instruments) that allowed efficient real-time performance with inexpensive hardware. Background and objectives: Amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye, is poor vision in an eye from prolonged neurologic suppression. It is a major public health problem, afflicting up to 3.6% of children, and will lead to lifelong visual impairment if not identified and treated in early childhood. Traditional treatment methods, such as occluding or penalizing the good eye with eye patches or blurring eye drops, do not always yield satisfactory results. Newer methods have emerged, based on liquid crystal shutter glasses that intermittently occlude the better eye, or alternately occlude the two eyes, thus stimulating vision in the lazy eye. As yet there is no technology that allows easy and efficient optimization of the shuttering characteristics for a given individual. The purpose of this study was to develop an inexpensive, computer-based system to perform liquid crystal shuttering in laboratory and clinical settings to help wake up the suppressed eye in amblyopic patients, and to help optimize the individual shuttering parameters such as wave shape, level of transparency/opacity, frequency, and duty cycle of the shuttering.Methods: We developed a liquid crystal glasses controller connected by USB cable to a PC computer. It generates the voltage waveforms going to the glasses, and has potentiometer knobs for interactive adjustments by the patient. In order to achieve good timing performance in this bidirectional system, we used multithreading programming techniques with data protection, implemented in LabWindows/CVI.Results: The hardware and software developed were assessed experimentally. We achieved an accuracy of 1Hz for the frequency, and 2% for the duty cycle of the occlusion pulses. We consider these values to be satisfactory for the purpose of optimizing the visual stimulation by means of shutter glasses. The system can be used for individual optimization of shuttering attributes by clinicians, for training sessions in clinical settings, or even at home, aimed at stimulating vision in the lazy eye.Conclusions: Multithreading offers significant benefits for data acquisition and instrument control, making it possible to implement time-efficient algorithms in inexpensive yet versatile medical instrumentation with only minimum requirements on the hardware.

Nowadays local primary desaturation has been proved to be an effective method to suppress the color breakup for field-sequential-color (FSC) displays. However, little attention has been focused on the interaction between various subfield colors and the color breakup visibility. In this article, a perception experiment was conducted with the help of a 120 Hz 2-field FSC display to investigate the thresholds of color breakup visibility along different hue directions with a constant white point in the standard color space. The experimental results show that the color breakup visibility is various when using different subfield colors for temporal combination. A relative high threshold value or low sensitivity of color breakup visibility can be observed when subfield colors are chosen along the blue-yellow direction while becoming perceptible easily along magenta-cyan direction. The results and analysis of our experiments are promising to optimize the performance of local primary desaturation. Meanwhile, other applications using the temporal color fusion such as tunable lighting can also benefit from the conclusion of our work to suppress the color breakup effect.

A 2D-3D autostereoscopic switchable display based on multi-distance dynamic directional backlight is introduced in this paper. The working principle and design process of the system are described in detail as well. Our prototype consists of a multi-distance dynamic directional backlight, LCD panel, and eye tracking system. The multi-distance dynamic directional backlight includes an LED array and corresponding driving circuit. The LEDs in the array are controlled in synchronization with the vertical synchronization signal of the LCD panel. The prototype can measure stereoacuity of the viewer’s eyes in different viewing distance with full resolution, low crosstalk, and 2D-3D compatibility. Combined with mechanical structure and eye tracking technique, the system can measure stereoacuity at 0.4, 1.0, and 5.0 m. Also, a multi-distance autostereoscopic display prototype is fabricated and demonstrated experimentally. It shows that the viewer can perceive high-quality 3D images in different distance. Without the auxiliary glasses, the crosstalk is about 5%. Our prototype is also compatible with active shutter glasses. In conjunction with active shutter glasses, the crosstalk is about 1%, just next to that of commercial display (View Sonic VX2268WM).

A 3D display system with Complementary Multiband Bandpass Filter (CMBF) and dynamic scanning backlight is introduced in this paper. Unlike the traditional 3D display devices with active shutter glasses, our prototype with CMBF solves the problem of screen flicker to a certain extent. The display system comprises a pair of glasses with two thin Nb2O5–SiO2 dielectric films, a dynamic scanning backlight, and a 120 Hz Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel. One optical lens is picking up one set of wavelengths, while the other one is picking up the other one and blocking the first one out. The dynamic scanning backlight consists of five white LED plates. We mount 2*R*C (Row*Column) white LEDs on each aluminum substrate. Half of the LEDs are covered with the same CMBF as what is on the left side of the glasses, and the others are covered with the same one as what is on the right side of the glasses. The dynamic scanning backlight can scan in real-time and keep in pace with the refreshing of the LCD. The system has two working modes. When the prototype is in spectrum-multiplexed mode, the crosstalk is about 1.9% (Left) and 3.2% (Right). In time-multiplexed mode, the crosstalk is about 1%, just next to that of a commercial display (BENQ XL2707-B). Additionally, our display system is compatible with active shutter glasses and it has no resolution loss in 3D mode.

The main contribution of this study is to realize the multiplexed lighting environment using time-division active shutter glasses. These days, the improvement of an indoor environment is actively studied to realize desirable condition. Visual stimulation, especially from peripheral vision, affects lots of factors such as feelings, work efficiency, mental stress, and relaxation. However, the influence of peripheral visual stimulation varies among individuals, and it is difficult to control peripheral visual stimuli individually in the same space. In most cases, the visual environment suitable for each person collide with each other and desirable visual environments for all occupants cannot be realized at the same time. Therefore, in this study, we propose a lighting environment multiplexing system. The proposed system makes independently controllable multiple lighting environments for multiple occupants in one space. We utilize active shutter technology for visual multiplexing in the system. With this system, completely different lighting environments can be simultaneously realized in the same space, such as “environment where the whole space is bright with a white light” vs. “environment where the incandescent lamp shines softly only partially.” This study presents the implementation and evaluation of the proposed system, which can control intensity, color, and distribution in the multiplexed lighting environment.

BackgroundThe ability to record brain activity in humans during movement, and in real world environments, is an important step towards understanding cognition. Electroencephalography (EEG) is well suited to mobile applications but suffers from the problem of artefacts introduced into the signal during movement. Steady state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) give an excellent signal-to-noise ratio and averaging a sufficient number of trials will eventually remove any noise not phase locked to the visual flicker.New MethodHere we present a method for producing SSVEPs of real world environments using modified LCD shutter glasses, which are commonly used for 3D TV, by adapting the lens to flicker at neurophysiologically relevant frequencies, in this case the alpha band. Participants viewed a room whilst standing and walking. Either the left or right side of the room was illuminated, to test if it is possible to recover the resulting SSVEPs when walking, as well as to probe the effect of walking on neural activity. Additionally, by using a signal generator to produce “simulated SSVEPs” on the scalp we can demonstrate that this method is able to accurately recover evoked neural responses during walking.ResultsThe amplitude of SSVEPs over right parietal cortex was reduced by walking. This finding is in line with converging evidence that visual-vestibular integration involves cortical lateralization with the right hemisphere being dominant in right handers. Furthermore, the waveform and phase of the SSVEPs is highly preserved between walking and standing, but was nevertheless sensitive to whether visual stimulation was presented to the left or right visual hemifield.ConclusionsThis method allows probing neural responses at a wide range of frequencies, during natural movements within real environments.

Background: Various measurement tools are utilized to detect the stereopsis threshold in the clinic, but seldom of these involves chromatic information. Incorporating colorful elements into computer-aided, three-dimensional (3D) evaluation systems could help the tests appear more vivid and attractive. The aim of this study was to clarify the effect of different chromatic pair stereo targets on the stereoacuity result. Methods: A total of 17 subjects with visual acuity in each eye of at least 0 logarithmic minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) and a stereoacuity of at least 32 second of arc (arcsec) were recruited. A 3D laptop with liquid crystal shutter glasses was used for evaluating stereoacuity. Thirteen pages were set including seven maximum color contrast pages and six isoluminant color contrast pages. Results: In maximum color contrast pair, no significant difference was found among all seven experiments [six test groups and one reference group, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test, F=0.995, P=0.493]. There was also no significant difference among the isoluminant color contrast pairs (six test groups, one-way ANOVA test, F=0.873, P=0.644). Paired t -test was used for comparing the data between the same hue series in the maximum color contrast pair vs . the isoluminant color contrast pair, and significant differences were found in all six pairs (P Conclusions: Adding chromatic factors to the stereo test is practical to evaluate stereopsis.

A Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) display system with resolution of 1280 ×1024 is designed and driven by FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array). The system uses DDR3 SDRAM (Double Data Rate3 Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory), combining the DDR3 MIG core with read/write timing and FIFO (First-in First out) technology, and achieves a 180Hz field sequential driving display on LCoS.

This paper proposes multi-view display using a digital light processing (DLP) projector and new active shutter glasses. In conventional stereoscopic active shutter systems, active shutter glasses have a 0--1 (open and closed) state, and the right and left frames are temporally divided. However, this causes the display to flicker because the human eye perceives the appearance of black frames when the other shutter is closing. Furthermore, it is difficult to increase the number of views because the number of frames representing images is also divided. We solve these problems by extending the active shutter beyond the use of the 0--1 state to a continuous range of states [0, 1] instead. This relaxation leads to the formulation of a new DLP imaging model and an optimization problem. The special structure of DLP binary imaging and the continuous transmittance of the new active shutter glasses require the solution of a binary continuous image decomposition problem. Although it contains NP-hard problems, the proposed algorithm can efficiently solve the problem. The implementation of our imaging system requires the development of an active shutter device with continuous transmittance. We implemented the control of the transmittance of the liquid crystal display (LCD) shutter by using a pulse-width modulation (PWM). A simulation and the developed multi-view display system were used to show that our model can represent multi-view images more accurately than the conventional time-division 0-1 active shutter system.

This paper proposes a driving method for 240Hz field-sequential-color displays. The proposed method redistributes the image energy in the displayed color fields with the modulation of backlight and liquid crystal signals. Most of the image luminance was concentrated in two multicolor fields, while the luminance of the other mono-color fields was much reduced. The proposed driving method can not only avoid the potential flicker issue but suppress the color breakup phenomenon.

In modern liquid crystal displays the use of RGB filters significantly reduces the maximum possible light efficiency. We present a number of technologies that would enable field sequential driving (FSC) to be realized. A FSC backlight system would increase efficiency and reduce power consumption.

This paper proposes a method to predict color performance of active-matrix liquid crystal displays driven by field sequential (FS) method. Using behavioral LC model, we could simulate LC's transmittance characteristics over time. By defining turn-on timing of RGB-LEDs in FS display, we could simulate the color performances of pixels depending on their locations across the panel.

This paper considers edge-directed information of an input image to effectively suppress color breakup for a field-sequential-color (FSC) display. The edge-directed concept can be applied on any current color breakup solution or even applying on a global dimming backlight system. From the simulated and emulated results, the edge-directed FSC method significantly suppresses color breakup as using Stencil-FSC with 12×24 backlight segments. Hence, the proposed edge-directed FSC method can much reduce the computational complexity and make an FSC display more promising as next generation eco-displays.

Herein, we present and discuss essential virtue of field-sequential colour liquid-crystal display (FSC-LCD) and how we technically resolved fundamental problems in the FSC-LCD such as the occurrence of flickering, hue rotation at low temperature and colour breakup. And in addition, we present demonstration of the implementations of actual examples of indicators in airports and railway stations, a transparent LCD and an LCD exhibiting good legibility under the direct sunshine.

The effect of polymer stabilisation of liquid crystal alignment is an attractive method for modifying the electro-optical properties of liquid crystals. The polymer stabilisation in ferroelectric liquid crystals allows a bistable switching of a biaxial alignment, which is surface-stabilised ferroelectric liquid crystal display (SS-FLCDs), to alter into uniaxial alignment of V-shaped switching to enable AC driving. We demonstrated an excellent performance to be suitable for a field sequential full-colour LCD exhibiting a fast switching with response time of less than 500 μs.

In the 21st century, the form of presenting information plays an incredibly important role in arousing interest in research problems. Stereoscopy is among the imaging techniques that have evoked much interest in the recent years. Its numerous applications that can be observed in various fields (such as medicine, space science, law, marketing, or entertainment industry) suggest that we should also use this technology for didactic purposes. The aim of the article is to discuss the process of creating three-dimensional photography and the opportunities offered by stereoscopy, which makes it possible to obtain images with depth effect and impression of solidity. The authors describe different ways to obtain three-dimensional images and the devices applied in the process, as well as techniques of presenting three-dimensional material to a wider audience. The methods of free-viewing (the oldest method of viewing stereoscopic images), anaglyph (a simple method applied in printing and displaying static images and movies on screen), lenticular raster (employing a series of narrow vertical cylindrical lenses), and stereoscopy (in which mirrors, lenses, prisms, or filters are used) are discussed. Also, the application of computer technology is reviewed and the ways in which stereoscopy can benefit from this medium owing to the use of LCD shutter glasses. Contemporary technology offers considerable opportunities, at the same time posing ever-increasing demands, which are mentioned in the paper, too. Teaching is most effective when information is received through multiple channels, combining verbal and visual messages. Owing to 3D images, the recipients grasp more information details, remember them longer, and are more interested in the message content. Creating didactic presentations with the use of three-dimensional photographs or films is presented as a way of arousing interest, allowing direct participation in the cognitive process, and facilitating the reception of the transmitted content.

Color breakup is a lethal issue to conventional field-sequential-color LCDs. Several methods have been proposed to solve this problem. However, these solutions are either more than 180 Hz—the currently used LC mode is not sufficiently fast for this field rate—or they degrade the image quality while using a field rate of 120 Hz. To overcome these limitations, a 120 Hz Stencil Local Primary Desaturation, Stencil-LPD, is presented in this work. The 120 Hz Stencil-LPD method provides reduced but sufficient saturated backlight color to precisely present an image with less color distortion or color breakup. After optimizing a number of backlight segments, the experimental results demonstrate that the image fidelity is significantly improved and color breakup is greatly suppressed compared to the existing methods.

We report two ultra-low viscosity liquid crystals for high image quality wearable displays with a field sequential color LCOS. Our mixtures offer ~4X faster response time than a commercial material at 20°C and ~8X faster at −20°C. Such a fast response time offers vivid color, high ambient contrast ratio, low power consumption, and mitigated color breakup even at −20°C. Different LC modes and frame rates are also evaluated.

In this paper, we describe an experimental study, which evaluates how 3D stereoscopy affects player immersion in a possibly very distracting local multiplayer game. The game “Nicely Dicely” was specifically developed for this purpose, with 3D stereoscopy in mind, right from the beginning. Groups of participants were competitively playing the game in non-3D monoscopic and 3D stereoscopic presentations via a 3D compatible projector and corresponding active shutter glasses. In the following, we elaborate on the game and our quantitative and qualitative hybrid experiment design and methodology. An analysis of the resulting data will show that, indeed 3D stereoscopy significantly increases spatial presence, involvement and player immersion, even in a local multiplayer situation. Furthermore, some guiding insights relating the game’s design will be illustrated.

Uniform lying Helix (ULH) is one of the most promising new LC modes for fast switching applications with alternative driving schemes such as FSC (field sequential colour). ULH operates via flexoelectric switching, unlike current commercially available liquid crystal modes that operate via dielectric switching. The realisation of mixtures with suitable flexoelectric properties requires unique materials composed of specially designed ´bi-mesogens´ and also the addition of a chiral dopant. Recent advances, updated mixture performance and other challenges such as alignment and driving for this new mode are discussed.

The proposed sync-processor enables a fractional-order time-synchronization to generate an efficient lens shutter-control timing for the charge-shared LCD lens driving in the 3DTV active shutter glasses. This design implements a universal sync-edge tracer as a pre-processor to form the unit event of the wireless sync-packet, a fractional-order timer to measure the timing period for accurate synchronization of the stereo-vision, and charge-shared driver controlled by the proposed symmetric even/odd timer to provide an efficient charge equalization method. The proposed symmetric even/odd timer block sequentially generates the driver switching events by distributing the driver activation into four pins of the LCD active shutter lenses to reuse the pre-pumped charge of the charge-shared LCD driver, which is sequentially shared between four pins for LCD lens. The proposed sequential lens control by distributing the charge-sharing events also enables the reduction of the hardware size required for the counters and overflow comparators in the switching timer to generate the pulse width modulation (PWM) pulse waveform of the LCD lens control for time-sequential 3D stereo-vision. The implemented one-chip solution, which is applied with all of the proposed techniques to improve the previous work, reduces about 140 $\mu\hbox{A}$ of LCD lens driving current, which results in about 30% current reduction in total. This paper describes the system's architecture and the details of the proposed techniques, while also identifying the key concepts and functions.

Viewing stereoscopic 3D content is typically enabled either by using polarizing or active shutter glasses. In certain cases, some viewers may not wear viewing glasses and hence, it would be desirable to tune the stereoscopic 3D content so that it could be simultaneously watched with and without viewing glasses. In this paper we propose a video post-processing technique which enables good quality 3D and 2D perception of the same content. This is done through manipulation of one view by making it more similar to the other view to reduce the ghosting artifact perceived without viewing glasses while 3D perception is maintained. The proposed technique includes three steps: disparity selection, contrast adjustment, and low-pass filtering. The proposed approach was evaluated through an extensive series of subjective tests, which also revealed good adjustment parameters to suit viewing with and without viewing glasses with an acceptable 3D and 2D quality, respectively.

Electrooptic modes with fast response and high contrast ratio are highly desirable in modern photonics and displays. Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) are especially promising for fulfilling these demands by employing photoalignment technology in FLC cells. Three electrooptic modes including surface stabilized FLC (SSFLC), deformed helix ferroelectric (DHF) mode, and electrically suppressed helix (ESH) mode are reviewed with the corresponding electrooptic effects like bi- and multi-stable switching, continuous modulation of grayscale or phase, and high contrast switching. The general operation principles FLC electrooptic modes are described, and then the characteristics of each modes for potential applications are summarized. With the advantages of controllable anchoring energy, the photoalignment provides FLC samples with uniform alignment and high contrast ratio. The fast FLCs with a high resolution and high contrast can be used in the next generation display including field sequential color FLC microdisplays, as well as switchable 2D/3D televisions.

We propose here a novel multi-layered waveguide liquid crystal (LC) smart window with full color rendering based on a polymer-network liquid crystal system. The inserted position of three-primary-color LED light bars is specially designed, which is parallel to the LC alignment to obtain a higher difference between transparent and scattering states. The optimal matching of polymer-network LC system is experimentally achieved by comparing several groups of LC and reactive mesogen materials. The prepared smart window is measured and analyzed in detail including optical/chromatic test, morphology characterization, and actual application effect. The proposed architecture opens up new prospects of flexible color switchable ability and synchronized full-color display for smart windows without limitations of slow LC response time and complicated field sequential driving scheme.

IR sensor synchronizing active shutter glasses for three-dimensional high definition television (3D HDTV) were developed using a flexible liquid crystal (FLC) lens. The FLC lens was made on a polycarbonate (PC) substrate using conventional liquid crystal display (LCD) processes. The flexible liquid crystal lens displayed a maximum transmission of 32% and total response time of 2.56 ms. The transmittance, the contrast ratio and the response time of the flexible liquid crystal lens were superior to those of glass liquid crystal lenses. Microcontroller unit and drivers were developed as part of a reception module with power supply for the IR sensor synchronizing active shutter glasses with the flexible liquid crystal lens prototypes. IR sensor synchronizing active shutter glasses for 3D HDTV with flexible liquid crystal lenses produced excellent 3D images viewing characteristics.

3D crosstalk is one of the disturbing things to recognize 3D images. This is caused by the phenomenon that input image for left eye is transferred at the right eye and right eye is transferred at the left eye because of the imperfect isolation by the device characteristics. In this paper, we review the 3D PDP (Plasma Display Panel) operation using active shutter glasses and crosstalk measurement method and investigate the major cause of 3D crosstalk and extend conventional 3D crosstalk using full white and full black image input to Gray-to-Gray (GtoG) 3D crosstalk. We suggest a specific method to reduce Gray-to-Gray 3D crosstalk by using Look up Table (LUT) and sub-field mapping in PDP. And then, we verify the method by measuring GtoG 3D crosstalk rate through specific test images and numerical results.

3D displays are increasingly popular in consumer and commercial applications. Many such displays show 3D images to viewers wearing special glasses, while showing an incomprehensible double image to viewers without glasses. We demonstrate a simple method that provides those with glasses a 3D experience, while viewers without glasses see a 2D image without artifacts. In addition to separate left and right images in each frame, we add a third image, invisible to those with glasses. In the combined view seen by those without glasses, this cancels the right image, leaving only the left. If the left and right images are of equal brightness, this approach results in low contrast for viewers without glasses. Allowing differential brightness between the left and right images improves 2D contrast. We observe experimentally that: (1) viewers without glasses prefer our 3D+2DTV to a standard 3DTV, (2) viewers with glasses maintain a strong 3D percept, even when one eye is significantly darker than the other, and (3) sequential-stereo display viewers with glasses experience a depth illusion caused by the Pulfrich effect, but it is small and innocuous. Our technique is applicable to displays using either active shutter glasses or passive glasses. Our prototype uses active shutter glasses and a polarizer.

A novel fast nematic liquid crystal mode is proposed. It relies on the fast relaxation flow from bend state to the twisted state in the optically compensated bend mode. Such new liquid crystal mode is indeed an improved mode from the optically compensated bend mode as it does not require any holding voltage. The new liquid crystal mode has fast response time and high contrast. The proposed fast liquid crystal mode is a good candidate for applications, such as optical shutter, field sequential color display, and 3D display.

The 3-D TV active shutter glasses (SGs) technology requires the communication of the sync timing for time-sequential frame synchronization, in contrast to the syncless film-type patterned retarder approach. To advance our previous work based on the fractional-order timer, this paper proposes a fractional-order synchronizer, including an adaptive sync reconstructor (ASR) based on FRT for syncless frame synchronization. The FRT enables accurate synchronization regardless of sync-clock speed. The hybrid cooperation of FRT and ASR reduces the required frequency of communication of the sync packets and turns off the emitter on the TV side for perfect syncless operation. The implemented one-chip solution uses less than roughly 11% of the operating current of major commercial SG. The syncless SG technique also minimizes synchronization failure and 3-D vision crosstalk from interruption in sync packets.

In this paper, I improve a tabletop stereoscopic 3DCG system with motion parallax so as to use it with two users and share a stereoscopic 3DCG scene together. I develop a method to calculate two users' viewpoints simultaneously by using depth images. I use a 3D-enabled projector to superimpose two 3DCG images for each user, and use active shutter glasses to separate them into individual images for each user. The improved system would be useable for cooperative works and match type games.

The advantages of LC photoalignment technology in comparison with common “rubbing” alignment methods tend to the continuation of the research in this field. Almost all the criteria of perfect LC alignment are met in case of azo-dye layers. Nowadays azo-dye alignment materials can be already used in LCD manufacturing, e.g. for the alignment of monomers in LCP films for new generations of photonics and optics devices. Recently the new application of photoaligned technology for the tunable LC lenses with a variable focal distance was proposed. New optically rewritable (ORW) liquid crystal display and photonics devices with a light controllable structure may include LC E-paper screens, LC lenses with a variable focal distance etc. Fast ferroelectric liquid crystal devices (FLCD) are achieved through the application of nano-scale photo aligning (PA) layers in FLC cells. The novel photoaligned FLC devices may include field sequential color (FSC) FLC with a high resolution, high brightness, low power consumption and extended color gamut to be used for PCs, PDAs, switchable goggles, and new generation of switchable 2D/3D LCD TVs, as well as photonics elements.

Two different techniques are dominating the 3D TV market today i.e. active shutter glasses and passive film patterned retarder. Both the techniques have their pros and cons. In this paper we compare these two types of 3D TV3D TV by evaluating them with respect to some important visual ergonomic parameters such as angle dependent cross talk, luminance levels, flicker and resolution.

We conducted an experiment that examined how visual discomfort arises while viewing autostereoscopic displays in a practical viewing situation. Visual discomfort was evaluated by measuring subjective symptoms and accommodative step response before and after viewing displayed material. Subjective discomfort measurements showed that viewing autostereoscopic displays resulted in relatively less discomfort than viewing 3D television with active shutter glasses. Moreover, we calculated the correlations between subjective visual discomfort and accommodation amplitude to near and far visual targets using an infrared optometer. With an autostereoscopic display and a 2D display, there was moderate correlation, whereas 3D television showed no correlation. This suggests that the discomfort arising from viewing autostereoscopic and 2D displays could be related to accommodative response. However, the discomfort arising from viewing 3D TV probably derives from other factors in a practical viewing.