Three-dimensional display

A 3D display is a type of display that can show different optical depth at the same time. It does so using depth cues based largely on focus and/or stereopsis.

The purpose of a 3D display is to enable a 3D human-computer interaction loop, which is used in 3D software for design and sharing ideas.

3D displays can be world-fixed, like mounted on a desk, or they can be head fixed, like built into a VR headset.

There are multiple ways to get a 3D display to show proper focus, thereby giving proper accommodation cues. The two main ways are holographic displays and light field displays. A light field display sends focal stacks of images based on rays to the eye.

Multifocal displays are displays that show multiple focus images at the same time, so that the eye can choose what to focus on.

3D is more than just stereoscopic flat images.

Benefits

3D displays allow for illustrating in three dimensions using a new higher level of the human computer interaction loop.

History

2000 to 2010

Autostereoscopic displays from the year 2000 to 2010 used a set of stereoscopic views that were displayed using parallax barriers.