- Samsung has co-developed a nanomaterial to create a light field display with 3D/2D switching
- Glasses-free 3D with wide viewing angles and very high resolution
- It will probably appear first on phones, tablets and commercial displays.
Are 3D televisions coming back? Not anytime soon, but a new type of 3D display technology is still pretty exciting, and Samsung has teamed up with private Korean research university POSTECH for a breakthrough. It has developed a way to switch between very high resolution 2D and realistic 3D without glasses.
We’ve recently seen glasses-free 3D from TCL and Visual Semiconductor, and both use plenoptic displays, also known as light field displays. Samsung’s version of a light field display uses what is described as a “metasurface lenticular lens” layer of “nanoscale structures” to “seamlessly transition between planar (2D) and stereoscopic (3D) images.”
This is an important development because, as commercial site The Elec explains, conventional light field displays tend to use bulky lenses, offer narrow viewing angles, have relatively low resolution, and may require real-time eye tracking to deliver 3D. Samsung’s design addresses these issues.
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What’s so special about Samsung’s 3D display technology?
Like other light field displays, Samsung’s system transmits light from multiple directions simultaneously to mimic the way light reaches the eye from real objects, making it possible to trick the brain into delivering 3D without glasses. It means there is no limited “sweet spot” you need to be in to see the 3D effect. But without decent viewing angles for general use, most displays will remain of limited use. Enter Samsung and its metasurfaces.
Samsung’s seemingly metasurfaces offer complex optical functions without the bulk of existing lenses, and Samsung’s lens can change its focal properties to deliver 2D or 3D by a simple voltage change. According to The Elec, the lens currently offers viewing angles of up to 100 degrees at just 1.2mm thick.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that you shouldn’t expect to have this technology in your home anytime soon. Samsung’s lens was 25 square centimeters, which is only about a quarter the size of a smartphone screen, let alone a television.
The first commercial applications of the technology are likely to be small, but they could be fun. Imagine if your iPhone could render your photos in 3D, thanks to the depth maps it already captures in photos? Or what if the Nintendo Switch 3 actually turns out to be the Switch 3DS, with a return to glasses-free 3D gaming?
The first applications will likely be for big spenders, such as retailers and other trade shows.
Will the technology reach televisions? I’m not sure and I speak as someone who owned and loved a 3D TV. It seems like every generation has to go through the ‘3D is the future!’ Not really, it’s not!’ cycle: the 3D cinema boom of the fifties, the second 3D cinema boom of the early eighties, the Avatar-led the 3D cinema and 3D television boom of the 2010s…
So if that timeline repeats, we’re in for the next 3D boom in the 2040s. Which gives Samsung plenty of time to perfect its technology.
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