† Corresponding author. E-mail:
Project supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFB0401503) and the R&D Plan of Jiangsu Science and Technology Department, China (Grant No. BE2016173).
A switchable autostereoscopic 3-dimensional (3D) display device with wide color gamut is introduced in this paper. In conjunction with a novel directional quantum-dot (QD) backlight, the precise scanning control strategy, and the eye-tracking system, this spatial-sequential solution enables our autostereoscopic display to combine all the advantages of full resolution, wide color gamut, low crosstalk, and switchable 2D/3D. And also, we fabricated an autostereoscopic display prototype and demonstrated its performances effectively. The results indicate that our system can both break the limitation of viewing position and provide high-quality 3D images. We present two working modes in this system. In the spatial-sequential mode, the crosstalk is about 6%. In the time-multiplexed mode, the viewer should wear auxiliary and the crosstalk is about 1%, just next to that of a commercial 3D display (BENQ XL2707-B and View Sonic VX2268WM). Additionally, our system is also completely compatible with active shutter glasses and its 3D resolution is same as its 2D resolution. Because of the excellent properties of the QD material, the color gamut can be widely extended to 77.98% according to the ITU-R recommendation BT.2020 (Rec.2020).
The 3-dimensional (3D) display has drawn wide attention in scientific research and commercial applications. Also, it is generally accepted that the viewing experience can be enhanced by the 3D equipment, compared with traditional displays.[1] Additionally, 3D displays, as the new generation consumer products, have come into the commercial market. The stereoscopic displays with auxiliary glasses, such as the active shutter glasses or polarizing glasses, become more popular. The active shutter glasses are composed of two switching lenses which are fabricated by liquid crystal.[2] The active shutter glasses, backlight, and liquid crystal display (LCD) panel could work together. The active shutter glasses and backlight are controlled by the vertical synchronization signal sent by the display card. High frequency responding displays, such as the LCD panels and projectors,[3] are essential to show the different perspective images in the time-multiplexed solution. The polarized glasses are widely used in cinemas and the projection screens can maintain the polarization of the light from the projectors. However, the inconvenience caused by the auxiliary glasses limits its development and this solution will be replaced by the autostereoscopic display. Spatial-multiplexed displays are those autostereoscopic displays most frequently encountered by the public. Two examples are parallax barrier displays[4–6] and lenticular lens displays.[7–10] In these solutions, the trade-off between view number and perceived resolution, the diffraction and light efficiency must be taken into consideration carefully. However, the resolution loss, narrow viewing angle, crosstalk, and incompatible data format will hinder the development of the spatially multiplexed displays which use parallax and lenticular barrier. The crosstalk and resolution loss degrade the 3D image quality severely. Redesigning the subpixel shape[11] can solve these problems to some extent. The directional backlight solution,[12–15] which can alternately project the left and right images to the location of user’s corresponding eyes, has overcome the issues related to the resolution loss and crosstalk. The crosstalk can be reduced to an unprecedented low level which is close to that of the stereoscopic display system with auxiliary glasses. This improvement increases the possibility of applying the backlight illumination scheme to practical applications. In conjunction with the head-tracking system, the viewer will see perspective images in different positions. Directional backlight solution enables the autostereoscopic display to maintain the original physical resolution by using the spatial-sequential-multiplexed technology. This solution will reduce the interaction between the lens array and the LCD panel.[16] However, the performance will be limited by the narrow viewing angle. Display qualities, such as resolution, crosstalk, and brightness, are the main research emphases. The color gamut defines a more specific range of colors from the range of colors identifiable by the human eye. In this paper, we use the Rec.2020[17] to evaluate the color gamut performance of our prototype. A wide color gamut is useful to enhance the image quality. The wide color gamut enables a display device to represent the real object accurately. So, the color gamut is also an important aspect that should be systematically studied and examined before the wide application of the autostereoscopic display.
Here, an autostereoscopic system belonging to the category of binocular eye-tracking display is proposed. Two parallax images (left image for the left eye and right image for the right eye) are used to produce exit pupils within the viewing scope. Different from those traditional ways using the lenticular lens or parallax barriers, we introduce a system based on temporal multiplexing theory. The display device comprises a directional optical module, a dynamic blue scanning backlight, and a 120 Hz LCD panel. The directional optical module includes the lenticular lens, the parallax barrier, and the quantum-dot-polymer (QDP) film. The light from blue LEDs in a specific group passes through the directional optical module and will be directed to the viewing zone. The dynamic blue scanning backlight comprises 80R (row) and 992C (column) blue LEDs. These LEDs are mounted regularly and driven by the constant current driver circuit. All the blue LEDs are controlled by the vertical synchronization signal sent from the display card and scan in pace with the refreshing of the LCD from top to bottom. The blue light can excite the QDP film to produce white light. The QD materials have been widely used to enhance the ability to restore the true color in the field of flat panel display. These materials can be excited by blue light. The emitted light has the advantage in narrow bandwidth. Its full width at half maximum (FWHM) is about 20–40 nm.[18,19] The domain wavelength is tunable by changing the size of the materials. Compared with the backlight using traditional phosphor white LEDs, the color gamut and display brightness will be improved if the QD materials could be implied.[20,21]
We present two working modes of this system. In the spatial-sequential mode, the crosstalk is about 6%. In the time-multiplexed mode, the viewer should wear auxiliary and the crosstalk is about 1%, just next to that of a commercial 3D display. Additionally, our system is also completely compatible with the active shutter glasses and its 3D resolution is the same as its 2D resolution. Due to the excellent properties of the QD material, the color gamut can be widely extended to 77.98% according to Rec.2020.
The main improvements and contributions of this study are as follows. (i) Reconstruction strategy of 3D images is improved, reducing the crosstalk. (ii) Based on the implementation of the QD material, the color gamut is widely extended and the ability to express the color is greatly enhanced. (iii) Real-time motion parallax is improved, allowing the viewer to see different perspectives of the 3D content. (iv) A dynamic scanning blue backlight has been used to reduce the crosstalk. Also, our prototype is completely compatible with the active shutter glasses.
The overall configuration of the proposed autostereoscopic 3D display device is based on a dynamic blue scanning backlight, a directional optical module, and a 120 Hz high refreshing rate LCD panel. The directional optical module comprises of the lenticular lens, the parallax barrier, and the QDP film. The proposed device operates by refreshing the left and right images alternately on a single direct-view display screen (LCD). The switching of the dynamic blue scanning backlight must be in synchronization with the refreshing of the LCD panel. The eye-tracking system controls the directional blue backlight. Separating and then projecting the left and right images are the main function of the directional backlight. Exit pupils are formed at where either a left or a right image is seen among the complete area of the screen, for the sake of removing the special glasses. Each pair of the exit pupils which are formed in pairs will follow the eye position of the viewer. When the backlight works in high switching speed, the viewer can perceive the 3D images on the LCD panel without the auxiliary glasses. In this case, the images are directed to the corresponding eyes of the viewer by the backlight, instead of being selected by the special glasses, such as the active shutter glasses.
In order to explain the working principle more accurately, only 8R and 16C blue LEDs are shown in the schematic figure. The color of the LEDs indicates the switching state (yellow-OFF, blue-ON). As shown in Fig.
All the LEDs used in the system emit blue light and the domain wavelength is 450 nm. In order to obtain the high horizontal resolution of the exit pupils, the small package LEDs are mounted accurately. The distance between adjacent LEDs is quite small, as shown in Fig.
The sequential 3D content is displayed alternately by a high-resolution LCD panel. The left and right images are projected to the viewer by the directional backlight. Two converging light beams, which are carrying the left and right images, are sequentially formed at the eye position of the viewer. When the LCD panel is displaying the images, the scanning backlight works at high speed.
Two lenticular lenses (lenticular lens 1 and lenticular lens 2) with different focal lengths are mounted face-to-face. They play an important role in the directional backlight, as shown in Fig.
In 3D mode, the blue LEDs in a particular position will be turned on. Consequently, the slit light source will be formed periodically. In 2D mode, all blue LEDs are turned on simultaneously and the periodicity of the slit light source is destroyed. The beams cannot form independent display regions, so the system will work as a traditional 2D display device. As long as we change the working mode of the blue LEDs, the display mode will be changed accordingly, as illustrated in Fig.
It is crucial to reduce the crosstalk in the time-multiplexed 3D display because each eye of the viewer should only see the left or right image intended for it. The operation of the backlight must be in synchronization with the refreshing of the left and right images.
Figure
To verify the feasibility of the proposed idea, a prototype is fabricated and related experiments are carried out.
The characteristic summary of the LCD panel used in this prototype is recorded in Table
Figure
Figure
The viewing experience of 3D displays is influenced by the crosstalk. Generally, the ratio from the unexpected rays can be used to quantify the 3D image quality, and the crosstalk ratio (CR) of the n-th view zone in N viewing zones case is defined as[16]
The normalized light intensity is shown in Fig.
Figure
The crosstalk of our prototype in time-multiplexed mode can be defined as follows:[17–20]
Because of the dynamic scanning backlight, the spatial-sequential device can also be used in the time-multiplexed mode. We set up 18 equal interval measurement points from top to bottom on the LCD panel. When the LCD displays WB or BW, the brightness through the left switching lens (or right switching lens) of the active shutter glasses is about 80.00 nit, as shown in Figs.
The schematic diagram of the measuring device is shown in Fig.
Both the FPGA and the LCD panel receive the vertical synchronization signal simultaneously from the display card. As shown in Fig.
The scanning backlight, LCD panel, and active shutter glasses could work interactively and be controlled by the vertical synchronization signal transmitted from the display card. The vertical synchronization signal and the active shutter glasses control signal can be seen in Fig.
In our prototype, the traditional white LEDs backlight module is replaced by the QD backlight which utilizes blue LEDs and QDP film. CA310 is used to measure the color coordinates of nine measuring points. The distribution of the nine measuring points is shown in Fig.
Various methods are used to express (diagram) the color gamut, but the common method used for display products is the x–y chromaticity diagram of the XYZ color system established by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE). In an x–y chromaticity diagram, the colors of the visible range are represented using numerical figures and graphed as color coordinates. The area shaped like an upside-down “U” surrounded by dotted lines indicates the range of colors visible to human beings with the naked eye. Various standards have been proposed to regulate how a display could reproduce colors, such as Rec.2020, sRGB, Adobe RGB, and NTSC. The color gamut defined by each standard is depicted as a triangle on the x–y chromaticity diagram. These triangles show the peak RGB coordinates connected by straight lines. A larger area inside a triangle is regarded to represent a standard capable of displaying more colors. As shown in Fig.
In our prototype, the traditional white LEDs backlight module is replaced by the QD backlight which utilizes blue LEDs and QDP film. The test images used in this experiment are shown in Figs.
When the different test images are displayed on the panel, the photos are recorded by the camera (Nikon D3300) with the same exposure parameter (f/5.6, ISO-100, 1/60 s). As shown in Fig.
The QDP down-conversion efficiency, i.e., absolute photoluminescence quantum efficiency, of the QD-polymer films is measured to be 80% with a Horiba PTI Quanta Master 400 steady-state fluorescence system with an integrated sphere. The concentration ratio between the red and green QDs is about 1:4. The spectrums of the prototype are shown in Fig.
A switchable autostereoscopic 3D display device with wide color gamut is introduced. A prototype is fabricated and some experiments are carried out to evalue the performances. Our prototype has advantages in resolution, crosstalk, color gamut, and switchable 2D/3D. In conjunction with a novel directional QD backlight and eye-tracking system, the viewer can enjoy the 3D experience with motion parallax. The system has two working modes. In the spatial-sequential mode, the crosstalk is about 6%. In the time-multiplexed mode, the viewer should wear active shutter glasses and the crosstalk is about 1%. Our system is completely compatible with the traditional active shutter glasses due to the dynamic scanning backlight. Compared with the commercial displays, our prototype also has the advantage in expressing colors.
[1] | |
[2] | |
[3] | |
[4] | |
[5] | |
[6] | |
[7] | |
[8] | |
[9] | |
[10] | |
[11] | |
[12] | |
[13] | |
[14] | |
[15] | |
[16] | |
[17] | |
[18] | |
[19] | |
[20] | |
[21] | |
[22] | |
[23] | |
[24] | |
[25] | |
[26] |