Wide-angle glasses-free 3-D image display system without ghosting providing real depth and agreement between accommodation and convergence

• US 7,646,540 B2
• Filed: 02/13/2009
• Issued: 01/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Gene Dolgoff
• Original Assignee: Gene Dolgoff
• Inventors: Dolgoff, Gene
• Primary Examiner(s): Sugarman; Scott J
• Application Number:
  US12/371,145
• Publication Number:
  US 20090153976A1
• Time in Patent Office: 333 Days
• Field of Search: 359/462, 359/630, 359/471, 359/472, 359/476, 359/479, 359/742
• US Class Current: 359/630
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 30/52 the 3D volume being constructed from a stack or sequence of 2D planes, e.g. depth sampling systems
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/001 using specific devices not provided for in groups G09G3/02 - G09G3/36, e.g. using an intermediate record carrier such as a film slide; Projection systems; Display of non-alphanumerical information, solely or in combination with alphanumerical information, e.g. digital display on projected diapositive as background slide projectors per se G03B23/00 = 42 HP
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/003 to produce spatial visual effects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/346 using prisms or semi-transparent mirrors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/395 with depth sampling, i.e. the volume being constructed from a stack or sequence of 2D image planes

Abstract

An image display system provides a viewer with an experience of three-dimensional imagery by presenting a composite image made up of at least two separate images. The system includes at least first and second image sources, a beam combiner, and a “background-image-occluding element” which prevents background imagery from being seen through foreground image elements. The system presents the image from one of the image sources, containing background image information, at a distance from the viewer which is greater than the distance from the viewer to the other image presented from the other image source, which contains foreground image elements. The “background-image-occluding element” is positioned at the same optical distance from the viewer as the image containing foreground image elements, eliminating any parallax error between them, enabling the foreground image elements to always occlude appropriate areas of the background image, regardless of the viewer'"'"'s position or the background image brightness relative to the brightness of foreground image elements.

Claims

1. An image display system comprising:

a composite image source, a first portion of the composite image source depicting foreground image elements, and a second portion of the composite image source depicting background image information;

a beam combiner; and

a background-image-occluding element;

wherein said first portion of said composite image source, said second portion of said composite image source, and said beam combiner are so disposed as to present to a viewer said foreground image elements from said one of said composite image portions at a shorter distance from the viewer than said background image information presented to the viewer from said other of the said composite image portions, and

wherein said background-image-occluding element is located at a distance from the viewer that is optically equivalent to the distance between the viewer and said foreground image elements.

2. The image display system of claim 1 wherein said background-image-occluding element is a light valve such as an LCD.

3. An image display system comprising:

at least two image sources, a first image source depicting foreground image elements, and a second image source depicting background image information;

a beam combiner; and

a background-image-occluding element;

wherein said first image source, said second image source, and said beam combiner are so disposed as to present to a viewer said foreground image elements from said one of said image sources at a shorter distance from the viewer than said background image information presented to the viewer from the other of the said image sources, and

wherein said background-image-occluding element is located at a distance from the viewer that is optically equivalent to the distance between the viewer and said foreground image elements.

4. The image display system of claim 3 wherein said background-image-occluding element is a light valve such as an LCD.