Patent ID: 7450188

Claim:
Autostereoscopic multi-user display having a sweet-spot unit that is direction-controlled by a tracking and image controller ( 160 ), wherein the sweet-spot unit has an illumination matrix ( 120 , 130 ) that includes a multitude of illumination elements these can be activated individually, and an imaging device having lens elements ( 111 115 ) for imaging alternately active illumination elements in the form of directed bundles of rays onto extended sweet-spots (SR/SL) which correspond with different eye positions (EL 1 /ER 1 , EL 2 /ER 2 ), so that right and left images of a stereoscopic image sequence provided on a transmissive image display matrix ( 140 ) can be rendered visible at right/left eye positions (EL 1 /ER 1 , EL 2 /ER 2 ) of observers, whereby the tracking and image controller ( 160 ) defines a direction (D 2 , D 2 , . . . or D 5 ) for each bundle of rays (B 1 B 5 ) by activating at least one illumination element of the illumination matrix ( 120 , 130 ) per eye position (EL 1 /ER 1 , EL 2 /ER 2 ), lens element ( 111 115 ) and line, so that all bundles of rays (B 1 B 5 ) coinside at the position of that sweet-spot(SR/SL), wherein the imaging device comprises: an imaging means ( 110 ) having a multitude of lens elements ( 111 115 ) with short focal distance, so that the active illumination elements are imaged onto the sweet-spots (SR/SL) in an enlarged fashion, and a field lens ( 170 ) which is disposed behind the imaging means ( 110 ) in the direction of light propagation and which has a much longer focal distance than the lens elements ( 111 115 ), in order to keep constant and at a minimum the distance between adjacent bundles of rays (B 1 , B 2 , B 4 , B 5 ), so that the definition of directions (D 1 -D 5 ) of the bundles of rays is supported with the illumination matrix ( 120 ).