Wide-viewing integral imaging system using polarizers and light barriers array

Abstract

Background: Integral imaging is considered one of the most promising three-dimensional display technologies, while the limited viewing angle is regarded as a primary disadvantage of integral imaging display to reach a commercial level. This paper proposes a viewing angle enhancement method for both liquid crystal display (LCD) and the projection-type three-dimensional integral imaging system. Methods: The proposed wide-viewing integral imaging system is established by using the lenslet array coupling with the polarizers, light barriers, and enlarged elemental images array. The size of light barrier and polarizer is equal to the pitch of each lenslet, the light barrier prevents light rays from passing through, and the polarizer controls the passage of light ray in the specific polarization direction. In the projection-type integral imaging system, two orthogonal elemental images arrays (EIA) are projected onto the projection screen simultaneously by the corresponding projectors. In LCD integral imaging system, two orthogonal EIAs are displayed by use of an LCD screen which can switch the polarization direction of the EIA by time-multiplexed technology within the time constant of the eyes’ response time. Results: The viewing angle can be enlarged dramatically by the improvement of the size of each elemental image according to the integral imaging principles. The experimental result shows that the proposed method exhibits approximately four times the viewing angle of conventional integral imaging with the same lens array. Conclusions: The increment of viewing angle can be determined by the number of light barriers between two adjacently orthogonal polarizers, the more the light barrier, the larger the viewing angle.