HP Develops Portable 3D Projection System

Remember that moment in Star Wars when R2D2 beams the holographic recording of Princess Leia calling for Obi-Wan Kenobi’s help? HP Labs is bringing a similar kind of holographic projection to the LCD on your phone or computer.

By modifying an LCD, HP has come up with a way to create a 3D image that “hovers” above the screen, allowing viewers to walk completely around the image. The secret: nanopatterned grooves, which the company has described as “directional pixels” that send light in different directions without the help of any moving parts or 3D glasses. The LCD has three sets of these grooves that direct red, green, and blue light through an array of liquid crystal shutters to create the moving image.

The HP team was able to create static 3D images with 200 viewpoints and videos with 64 viewpoints. Although the technology is still in the prototype stage, HP has shown that it can produce a high-definition 3D images with a wide viewing zone in a form factor that can easily be made portable.

You can read more about it in Nature, and see a video below.

Source: The Verge