] Using cellophane to convert a laptop computer screen into
] a three-dimensional display
]
] Keigo lizuka
]
] Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
]
] 35 St. George Street
]
] University of Toronto
]
] Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A4
]
] Abstract
]
] We present a novel, inexpensive, stereoscopic technique
] for generating 3D displays from cellophane and a laptop
] computer screen. Stereoscopy requires independent
] manipulation of the left and right eye views.1 Our
] technique takes advantage of two facts; the first is that
] the light from the liquid crystal display of a laptop
] computer is polarized light 2, and therefore we can
] easily manipulate its transmission with a polarizer
] sheet. The second fact is that a cellophane
] half-waveplate can change the direction of polarization
] of light. The direction of polarization of one half of
] the laptop screen was rotated by the cellophane
] half-waveplate. Two images displayed with orthogonal
] polarization on two halves of the screen become separable
] by wearing a pair of glasses of orthogonal polarization.
]
] A distinct advantage of our technique is its simplicity;
] a laptop screen can be converted into a 3D display with
] minimal knowledge of optics. An additional advantage of
] our technique is that we can eliminate the need for the
] observer to wear special glasses by making the computer
] wear the glasses instead. This is possible because a
] laptop computer normally has only one viewer at a time,
] and the relative orientation of the viewer's head and the
] laptop screen is sufficiently stationary. A futher
] significant discovery is that we verified that
] cellophane (costing mere pennies) proved to be a better
] half-waveplate than a commercial half-waveplate
] (costing hundreds of dollars for the required size) for
] rotating the polarization of white light.