Three dimensional glasses free light field display using eye location

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10939085-B2
Application number	US-201916662156-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 24, 2019
Priority date	Oct 19, 2017
Publication date	Mar 2, 2021
Grant date	Mar 2, 2021

Abstract

In some examples, a three dimensional display system includes a display (for example, a display screen or a display panel), a micro lens array, and an eye tracker to track one or more eyes of a person and to provide eye location information. The display system also includes a rendering processor to render or capture color plus depth images (for example, RGB-D images) or light field images. The display system also includes a light field processor to use the eye location information to convert the rendered color plus depth images or light field images to display images to be provided to the display.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A three dimensional display apparatus comprising:
a micro lens array having a focal length and a lens pitch;
an eye tracker to provide eye location information corresponding to a tracking of eyes of a user; and
at least one processor to:
at least one of render or capture at least one of a color plus depth image or a light field image,
convert the at least one of color plus depth image or light field image to a display image based on the eye location information, the display image to be provided to a display,
determine a distance between the micro lens array and a user eye viewpoint based on the eye location information,
determine a first eye box size based on the distance, the focal length of the micro lens array, the lens pitch of the micro lens array, and a pixel pitch of the display, and
calculate a second eye box size based on the eye location information, the second eye box size smaller than the first eye box size, the display image to be viewed through an eye box having the second eye box size.

2. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , the at least one processor to render the light field image based on the eye location information.

3. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , further including a display backlight to steer backlight based on the eye location information.

4. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the display has a pixel density higher than 250 pixels per inch.

5. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the micro lens array has an F number larger than 8.

6. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the eye tracker is a pupil tracker to track one or more pupils, and wherein the eye location information includes pupil location information.

7. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the eye tracker is a three dimensional eye tracker and the eye location information includes three dimensional eye location information.

8. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor includes a graphics engine.

9. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to convert at least one of the color plus depth image or the light field image to a stereo integral image to be provided to the display.

10. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to render at least one of a plurality of color plus depth images or a plurality of light field images according to the tracked location of one or more of the eyes.

11. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to render at least one of the color plus depth image or the light field image based on the eye location information.

12. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to offset displayed images to align a center of the eye box with eye location of one or more of the eyes.

13. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to convert at least one of the color plus depth image or the light field image to display images using one or more post-processing techniques.

14. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the one or more post processing techniques include screen-space ray tracing.

15. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is to provide the display images to the display.

16. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , further including a display backlight to steer light alternating between the eyes based on the tracked eye location information at a refresh rate that is higher than a human perceivable rate.

17. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the distance between the display and the micro lens array is set to the focal length of the micro lens array.

18. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , the at least one processor to calculate the second eye box size to correspond with a size of a pupil of one or more of the eyes.

19. The three dimensional display apparatus of claim 1 , the at least one processor to calculate the second eye box size based on
an integral image pitch size.

20. A method comprising:
tracking one or more eyes viewing a micro lens array and a display to provide eye location information;
at least one of rendering or capturing at least one of color plus depth or light field images;
converting at least one of the color plus depth images or the light field images to display images based on the eye location information, the display images to be provided to the display;
determining a distance between the micro lens array and a user eye viewpoint based on the eye location information;
determining a first eye box size based on the distance, a focal length of the micro lens array, a lens pitch of the micro lens array, and a pixel pitch of the display; and
calculating a second eye box size based on the eye location information, the second eye box size smaller than the first eye box size, the display image to be viewed through an eye box having the second eye box size.

21. The method of claim 20 , further including steering light alternating between the eyes based on the tracked eye location information at a refresh rate that is higher than a human perceivable rate.

22. The method of claim 20 , further including setting the distance between the display and the micro lens array to the focal length of the micro lens array.

23. At least one non-transitory machine readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processor to at least:
track one or more eyes viewing a micro lens array and a display to provide eye location information;
at least one of render or capture at least one of color plus depth images or light field images;
convert at least one of the color plus depth images or the light field images to display images based on the eye location information, the display images to be provided to the display;
determine a distance between the micro lens array and a user eye viewpoint based on the eye location information,
determine a first eye box size based on the distance, a focal length of the micro lens array, a lens pitch of the micro lens array, and a pixel pitch of the display, and
calculate a second eye box size based on the eye location information, the second eye box size smaller than the first eye box size, the display image to be viewed through an eye box having the second eye box size.

24. The at least one storage device of claim 23 , wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the one or more processors to render the light field images based on the eye location information.

25. The at least one storage device of claim 23 , wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the one or more processors to track one or more pupils viewing the micro lens array and the display screen to provide pupil location information, wherein the eye location information includes pupil location information.

26. The at least one storage device of claim 23 , wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the one or more processors to render the color plus depth based on the eye location information.

27. The at least one storage device of claim 23 , wherein the instructi

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Li Tuotuo
• Ratcliff Joshua J
• Huang Qiong
• Supikov Alexey M
• Azuma Ronald T

Classifications

• H04N13/305

  using lenticular lenses, e.g. arrangements of cylindrical lenses · CPC title

• H04N13/395

  with depth sampling, i.e. the volume being constructed from a stack or sequence of two-dimensional [2D] image planes · CPC title

• H04N13/383 Primary

  for tracking with gaze detection, i.e. detecting the lines of sight of the viewer's eyes · CPC title

• G06F3/013 Primary

  Eye tracking input arrangements (G06F3/015 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04N13/324

  Colour aspects · CPC title