Dutch display maker Dimenco has announced the launch of a new product that’s said to provide an incredibly immersive and realistic 3D experience, with no glasses or headset required. The technology has been labeled “simulated reality” and is said to be a rival to augmented reality and virtual reality.
The idea of a 3D display will likely be met with skepticism. In 2008, the world’s biggest TV makers, including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, began embracing the idea of 3D televisions that had to be viewed using active or passive glasses. However, the idea never really caught on - people don’t like sitting and wearing silly-looking goggles at home, and by 2016 Samsung admitted that the 3D TV concept was dead. Other TV firms quickly followed suit, and the 3D television disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived.
Now though, Dimenco, which has its origins in Royal Philips Electronics, wants to revive the concept of 3D displays. The company explains that it has been hard at work developing its technology, which relies on “lenticular light-field computer vision”, plus integrated sensors and image processing algorithms. Its display is equipped with cameras that can detect the viewer’s eyes and face, and provide input to the screen to process the images it displays.
The company has now launched its first product, the SR Pro Display, which is a 32-inch 8K monitor with a 60Hz refresh rate capable of displaying either 2D or 3D images. It’s expensive, priced at $11,690 or 9,990 Euros and it is aimed at professionals.
The company said the SR Pro Display is meant to sit between AR and VR, and its technology is certainly impressive, with a number of videos available on YouTube that provide a good idea of what the tech is capable of.
The display has also received some rave reviews. "After my time with it, I can only describe what I saw as jaw-dropping," wrote PetaPixel reviewer David Crewe earlier this year.
A more recent review in TechRadar had this to say: "The proper sense of depth didn’t just help me race better, it made the driving experience look and feel much more real – in much the same way that VR’s immersion makes you believe you’ve been transported to another world. That said, the experience was still a bit behind the immersion the best VR headsets afford."
Dimenco also has plans to implement its technology in laptops, tablets and smartphones, but there is no word yet if it will develop an actual TV as well.
