Patent ID: 8089506
Filing Date: 2012-01-03
Classification: G06T,H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for displaying an image stereoscopically representing a three-dimensional object, in an image display region having a quadrilateral periphery surrounded by four edge sides, the apparatus comprising: an emitter configured to emit light, having an intensity modulator configured to modulate intensity values of the light emitted from the emitter, for a plurality of sub-areas into which the image is divided, respectively; a wavefront-curvature modulator configured to modulate curvature values of wavefront of the light emitted from the emitter, for the respective sub-areas of the image; and a controller configured to control the intensity modulator and the wavefront-curvature modulator, based on a luminance signal indicative of luminance values of the respective sub-areas of the image, and a depth signal indicative of depth values of the respective sub-areas of the image, wherein: the image signal contains a plurality of segments which are associated with a plurality of scan lines formed by the light on the image display region, respectively, the luminance signal contains a plurality of luminance-signal segments which correspond to the respective scan lines, the depth signal contains a plurality of depth-signal segments which correspond to the respective scan lines, the image signal contains, per each scan line, an effective portion which corresponds to the image display region, and which is used for image display, and a non-effective portion which corresponds to an image non-display region located outside the image display region, and which is not used for image display, whereby the entire image signal contains a plurality of effective portions and a plurality of non-effective portions, the image signal is formed, such that each of the depth-signal segments which corresponds to each scan line is embedded into a corresponding one of the effective portions, with each depth-signal segment located at only a predetermined one of both ends of the corresponding effective-portion, and the predetermined one end of the effective portions corresponds to a predetermined one of the four edge sides of the image display region.