Stereoscopic projector for polarized viewing with extended color gamut

Stereoscopic projectors show left and right eye information to induce a sense of depth. The viewer wears eyeglasses that separate the left and right eye images using color, shutters or polarization mechanisms. Polarization-based systems can use two identical projectors with passive polarizers at the output of their projection lens. We have designed and built a prototype of a stereoscopic projection system that incorporates the functionality of both projectors and polarizers into one optical engine. Furthermore, the system is adapted to incorporate large color gamut visualization with up to six primary colors. Light emitting diodes with different colors are used as light sources. The optical engine uses two liquid crystal on silicon light modulators to simultaneously modulate one s- and one p-polarized image. Both modulation light paths in the optical engine have a throughput of 10% yielding a total throughput of 20%. In red, green and blue color operation we demonstrate stereoscopic vision wearing polarization sensitive eyeglasses with a 40% increase of the ITU-R BT.709 color space. The images are shown at a frame rate of 120 Hz, producing a total light output of 25 lm, a contrast of 1000:1 and 0.5% crosstalk. We also demonstrate that cyan-colored information can be modulated by the system, which results in a 50% increase of the ITU-R BT.709 color space. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.