Television – Stereoscopic – Stereoscopic display device
Reexamination Certificate
1997-01-30
2002-09-03
Kelley, Chris (Department: 2613)
Television
Stereoscopic
Stereoscopic display device
C359S462000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06445406
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stereoscopic image display apparatus, and more particularly to such apparatus adapted for stereoscopic image display in a television, a video display, a computer monitor, a game machine or the like.
2. Related Background Art
As the conventional stereoscopic image display apparatus, there is known an apparatus of a system of polarizing glasses. In this system, the image display device is provided with a liquid crystal shutter for obtaining different polarized states for a right-eye parallax image R and a left-eye parallax image L. The polarized state is switched in synchronization with the field signal of the displayed image and the observer wearing polarizing glasses observes such switched display, whereby the stereoscopic observation is realized by splitting the left and right images to the respective eyes in time-sequential manner. However such system is cumbersome for the user, being required to always wear the polarizing glasses.
On the other hand, among the stereoscopic image display apparatus not using such polarizing glasses, there is known a system providing a lenticular lens in front of the display device, thereby spatially separating the images for the left and right eyes.
FIGS. 1A and 1B
are schematic views showing such conventional system with the lenticular lens, and are respectively a cross-sectional view seen from above the observer and a front view of display pixels of the liquid crystal display.
In these drawings,
501
indicates a display pixel portion of a liquid crystal display device, of which glass substrate, color filter, electrodes, polarizing filters, rear light source etc. are omitted from the illustration. The display pixel portion
501
is composed of apertures
502
having color filters and constituting pixels, and a black matrix
503
separating such pixels. The liquid crystal display is provided thereon, at the side of the observer, with a lenticular lens
504
consisting of cylindrical lenses having a semicircular cross section as illustrated and extending perpendicularly to the plane of drawing, and the display pixel portion
501
of the liquid crystal display is positioned at the focal plane of such lenticular lens.
In the display pixel portion
501
, stripe-shaped pixels Ri for the right eye and stripe-shaped pixels Li for the left eye are alternately displayed in such a manner that each pair of such pixels corresponds to a pitch of the lenticular lens, whereby such paired pixels are optically separated and respectively focused on the right eye E
R
and the left eye E
L
of the observer by means of the lenticular lens
504
o
thereby enabling stereoscopic observation.
In
FIGS. 1A and 1B
there are shown spatial areas where the stripe pixels for the right and left eyes can be respectively viewed by the cylindrical lens
504
at the central portion of the display. Also for other cylindrical lenses of the lenticular lens, similarly separated spatial areas overlap at the right and left eyes of the observer. Thus the stripe pixels for the right eye and those for the left eye can be uniformly separated and observed over the entire image, and parallax images R and L, each consisting of a group of stripe pixels, can be respectively observed by the right eye and the left eye.
In this system, the two parallax images R, L are respectively divided into vertical stripe-shaped pixels, which are alternately arranged from the left or right end of the image area as a single striped image for display on the display pixel portion
501
, so that the resolution of the image display device is inevitably reduced to ½.
On the other hand, the Japanese Patent Laid-open Application Nos. 5-107663 and 7-234459 disclose stereoscopic image display apparatus of the lenticular system without such reduction in the resolution.
FIGS. 2A
,
2
B and
2
C are views showing the basic configuration of the stereoscopic image display apparatus disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 5-107663. This stereoscopic image display apparatus is composed of a light direction switching device
601
consisting of a planar matrix light source
602
and a lenticular sheet
603
, and a transmissive display device
604
. The planar matrix light source
602
is provided, within the width of a lenticular lens constituting the lenticular sheet
603
, with a stripe-shaped light source for the right eye (a column marked with “R” of
602
R in
FIG. 2B
) and a stripe-shaped light source for the left eye (a column marked with “L” of
602
L in
FIG. 2B
) as a pair.
This display apparatus functions in the following manner. When the stripe-shaped light source for the right eye (
602
R in
FIG. 2B
) is turned on to emit the illuminating light from the entire area of the lenticular sheet to the area for the right eye, a parallax image for the right eye (
604
R in
FIG. 2C
) is displayed in an odd-numbered frame in synchronization, and, when the stripe-shaped light source for the left eye (
602
L in
FIG. 2B
) is turned on to emit the illuminating light from the entire area of the lenticular sheet to the area for the left eye, a parallax image for the left eye (
604
L in
FIG. 2C
) is displayed in an even-numbered frame in synchronization. Thus the parallax image R and L need not be divided into stripe pixels but can be displayed entirely in the even and odd frames, so that the stereoscopic image display device can be realized without the loss of the resolution.
The conventional stereoscopic image display apparatus of the lenticular lens system shown in
FIGS. 1A and 1B
, having the lenticular lens on the liquid crystal display at the observer side thereof, is associated with drawbacks that the image quality is deteriorated by the surface reflection of the lenticular lens and that Moire fringes are formed by the black matrix of the liquid crystal display.
The conventional stereoscopic image display apparatus shown in
FIGS. 2A
,
2
B and
2
C realizes the stereoscopic view by time-divided display of the right-eye parallax image R and the left-eye parallax image L, but the image switching has to be made at a high speed in order to avoid flickering phenomenon.
Isono et al. (“Condition for time-divided stereoscopic view”, J. of Television Association, Vol.41, No.6(1987), pp549-555) reported that the stereoscopic view could not be achieved in the time-divided display of a field frequency of 30 Hz, in the 2:1 interlaced scanning display system of the current television. It was also reported that, in case of opening and closing both eyes alternately, the limit frequency not sensing the flickering (CFF: critical flicker frequency) was about 55 Hz and that the field frequency needed to be at least 110 Hz in consideration of the flickering.
Thus, such conventional apparatus is associated with a drawback of requiring a display device capable of high-speed display, for the transmissive display device
604
.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a stereoscopic image display apparatus allowing to observe a satisfactory stereoscopic image, even with a display device with a low display speed (low frame frequency), by separating the left and right parallax images uniformly over the entire image area at the observing position of a predetermined height, and with the observation area widened in the vertical direction.
The above-mentioned object can be attained, according to an aspect of the present invention, by a stereoscopic image display apparatus comprising:
light source means for emitting light from plural apertures;
an optical element array consisting of an array of optical elements having different optical functions in the horizontal and vertical directions for giving directionality to the light from the apertures; and
a transmissive display device for displaying a stripe image formed by alternately arranging, in a predetermined order, right stripe pixels and left stripe pixels obtained by dividing each of a parallax image for the right eye and a parallax image for the le
Inoguchi Kazutaka
Morishima Hideki
Nose Hiroyasu
Sudo Toshiyuki
Taniguchi Naosato
Kelley Chris
Morgan & Finnegan , LLP
Vo Tung
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