Computer users may soon get 3-D screens

SINGAPORE: Computer users may soon be able to work on screens with displays
that give the appearance of being three-dimensional. The DVI actualdepth
monitors, developed by a private New Zealand-based research company Deep Video
Imaging, displays images on two physical planes to create a depth of field.

"People have tried like crazy to get the illusion of depth and the
closest you can have is wearing (3-D) goggles and standing at a particular
position," DVI director Lim Soon Hock said on the sidelines of a news
conference to launch the product. The monitor, which uses multiple layers of
liquid crystal display (LCD) screens to create depth, allows users to work
across what appears to be a foreground and background seamlessly, without the
need for 3-D glasses or specialized software.

"We have not come across anything which comes close to a DVI
monitor," Fong Yew Chan, an engineer and business development director for
the Singapore government-funded Institute of High Performance Computing told
Reuters. The institute, focused on high-end simulation research, is
collaborating with DVI on applications for the monitor.

"There are technological challenges to be overcome before you can have
this kind of display (which) not even the LCD manufacturers could overcome so
easily," Fong said. A rainbow effect called moire interference, which
occurs when two LCD screens are placed one behind the other, was one problem.

The "window box" effect where the side portion between the two
planes can been seen had to be eliminated, along with the reflection of the
screens off each other, DVI executive chairman David Hancock said. The monitors,
which are thinner than conventional cathode ray tube displays, are compatible
with all operating systems.

DVI has filed for several worldwide patents and spent about US$3.5 million in
research and development. The company, funded by New Zealand and Singapore
capital, will not manufacture the monitors itself, but hopes to license the
technology to others. The company plans to make prototypes for desktop computers
by next year. The monitors are currently available as manufacturing modules in
different screen sizes.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.