Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 4, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
German researchers have developed a 3D display solution to give advertising posters a previously unattained spatial effect. Viewers do not need special glasses. “The displays work in a similar way to the lenticular images familiar from postcards,” explained Dominik Giel, group leader at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM.
Of course, the quality of the 3D effect is significantly higher, so it also works at greater distances and from a wide variety of viewing angles. Industry partner RealEyes will begin marketing the system later this year. Posters up to five metres in size are planned.
250,000 Lenses for the 3D Effect
Lenticular postcard images use a simple grooved film. “Instead, we use a lens array consisting of 250,000 individual lenses, each with a diameter of two millimetres,” said Giel. The lens film is also applied to unexposed photographic paper, after which special software calculates an image of the complete motif for each individual lens. This ensures that the lens film does not shift relative to the motif. The volume of data then exposed in one square metre of display is equivalent to more than a feature film.
A tiny, very high-resolution image is created behind each lens. According to Giel in an interview with the pressetext.de news service, this meaningfully covers a spectrum of viewing angles more than 1,000 times greater than that of conventional lenticular images. As a result, the 3D effect not only works really well at arm’s length, but remains effective, for example, when a billboard is viewed from the other side of the street. In the case of depicted columns, the visual impression while walking past is just as though one were actually walking past them, according to Fraunhofer IPM.
Prototype
The joint development by Fraunhofer IPM, RealEyes and Kiel University currently exists as a prototype in DIN A0 format. In future, however, the 3D posters are to be produced on an industrial scale. RealEyes will market them under the name Lenscape. More precise details about the product are expected to be announced in June.
In any case, the company intends to target three areas of application, it said in response to an inquiry from pressetext. Advertising in the narrower sense is one core target group, encompassing outdoor advertising, trade-fair construction, event marketing, and airport and railway-station advertising. This is joined by architecture and design, with the categories art in architecture, shop design and interior architecture. RealEyes sees the entertainment segment, comprising theatre and musicals, museums and exhibitions, as well as attractions and theme parks, as the third area of application.
