Improved Glasses Key to Better 3D Home Viewing, Intel Engineer Says

Enabling a “good user experience” will ultimately “make or break” 3D as an entertainment medium, said Philip Corriveau, Intel Labs principal engineer of interaction and experience. He spoke during a symposium in New York last week on 3D vision and health sponsored by the American Optometric Association and the 3D@Home Consortium. An experimental psychologist, Corriveau has been studying the human factors involved in driving the adoption of 3D in the home, both for Intel and with the Vision Performance Institute at Pacific University.

Content, an issue that has widely been cited for slow adoption of 3D at home, is “coming along,” but other issues remain, Corriveau said. An across-the-board positive experience with 3D, from the theater to the home to handheld devices, will have to be in place to create an overall impression of 3D as successful technology, he said.

"3D needs to solve the experience flow,” Corriveau said. Consumers have an “immersive experience” at the theater, he said. Watching a sports event at home is a “totally different flow,” because of the social aspects of viewing. “Someone walks in front of you or you turn to talk to someone, and the active-glasses have to resync because the flow has been interrupted,” he said. Another drawback for consumers is viewers can’t lie down on a couch and watch 3D TV, because glasses have to line up with the display, he said.

The biggest “hot button” for 3D is “scalability of experiences” across devices, Corriveau said. Feature presentations in theaters are “wonderful and the movies are good,” he said. “How do we get that experience on TV or on the handheld while driving to work?” At issue at home are 3D glasses, which might be acceptable for the cinema but don’t translate well to home use, he said. Adjustable nose pieces are one way to tailor the depth illusion or viewing distance to different users, a significant issue affecting universally sized glasses today, he said. 3D cellphones are coming soon, and they'll deliver a different experience altogether that won’t require consumers to wear glasses, he noted.

Until the 3D experience is acceptable in each context for individual users, “you're not going to have won them over,” Corriveau said. “This evolution is very complicated.” He cited a user taking videos of a 3D soccer game on a smartphone. “You're not going to be passing around these little devices” to watch the video, he said. “You're going to want to play it on a netbook, a notebook or TV,” he said. “Those are the types of things we need to solve."

From the viewpoint of optometrists, 3D glasses have to advance to fit users’ needs. “We're moving into an era where we have theater glasses that are unique to us,” said Michael Duenas, associate director of health sciences and policy at the American Optometric Association. Opportunities exist for prescription glasses and contact lenses, “and optometrists will be involved in prescribing those,” he said. People aren’t going to want to put 3D glasses over regular glasses, he said, “and if 3D takes off like it is, people are going to want to have glasses that are balanced for them.” Those with multi-focal glasses may be able to have a less-expensive single-focal pair for the theater since they won’t need a near-focal lens, he said. In terms of prescribing or ordering glasses, he said, “it’s not going to be much different from ordering a standard pair of glasses."

It might be possible to devise a solution using customized glasses rather than the standard RealD glasses used in theaters, Duenas said, in response to a question about contact lens wearers who can’t see 3D. Mild alignment problems “made worse by the 3D experience” might be correctable through vision training or incorporation of prism glasses that bend the light and “help the eye muscles not to have to work as hard,” he said. There’s even talk of whether 3D circular polarized technology could be put directly into contact lenses, so users could have “theater contact lenses and not have to wear glasses at all,” he said.

Fashion eyewear companies have seen opportunity in polarized 3D glasses, which they've said can double as 3D glasses for the theater. Duenas, however, said “with 3D polarized and circular polarized lenses, there’s a difference between what you'd need for sunglasses outside and what you'd need in the theater.” Polarized lenses used in sunglasses use horizontal and vertical polarization, which eliminate glare that comes off of bright surfaces, he said. “You're going to see some companies say you can use circular polarized lenses outside, but they're not going to work as good as those designed specifically for sun wear."

"Marchon3D’s circular polarized lens also doubles as a photochromic lens for outdoor sunglass use,” responded Hannah Sarbin, vice president of new business development, for eyewear maker Marchon. “The lenses react extremely fast to light conditions, darkening in 30 seconds or less when exposed to the sun,” she said in a written statement. “They then return to their original tint in just minutes when the wearer returns indoors and are ready for any passive 3D content experience."

Meanwhile, Marchon3D announced a collaboration with Younger Optics to develop and offer prescription 3D lenses. Younger Optics will manufacture semi-finished prescription circular polarized 3D blank lenses that complement Marchon’s M3D lens technology, Marchon said. The 3D lenses will be available for both single vision and progressive lens wearers. Marchon said pricing and availability of lenses will be announced in coming months but that users should be able to order prescription 3D lenses through eye care professionals by Q4 2011.