Retro-Reflective Screen Element Orientation for Large Display Brightness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current display systems face limitations in achieving large screen sizes due to cost and power consumption issues with flat-panel displays, and projector-based systems suffer from decreased brightness and increased noise, while lacking optimal solutions for glasses-free 3D immersive viewing and simultaneous customized video streams for multiple viewers.
Innovation Solution
A display system utilizing a projector combined with a retro-reflective screen, where the retro-reflective screen elements are optimized in orientation and location to minimize incident angles, allowing for improved brightness and uniformity, and enabling glasses-free 3D viewing by reflecting light at angles centered on a normal incident angle, without the need for a beam splitter.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If flat-panel displays with LED backlighting or plasma-based screens are used, then display quality is improved, but screen size is limited to below 80 inches due to nonlinear increases in cost and high power consumption
Solution Approach 1:
A retro-reflective screen is introduced as an intermediary component between the projector and the viewer. The screen reflects light back toward the source with minimal scattering, enabling large screen sizes without the power consumption and cost limitations of flat-panel displays. This mediator allows the system to achieve large area displays while maintaining energy efficiency.
2Area of stationary object
If projector-based displays are used to achieve large screen sizes, then screen area is increased, but screen brightness decreases and power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The retro-reflective screen converts the typically harmful scattering of light into a beneficial effect by reflecting light back toward the viewer with high efficiency. This conversion maintains screen brightness even as screen size increases, overcoming the inverse relationship between screen area and brightness in conventional projector systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the optical parameters of the display by using retro-reflective material with specific geometric structures (corner cubes, prisms) that alter the reflection characteristics. This parameter change enables the screen to reflect light at angles centered on the normal incident angle, maintaining brightness across large screen areas.
3Illumination intensity
If retro-reflective screen elements are oriented to minimize incident angles for improved brightness and uniformity, then image quality is improved, but screen element orientation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Each retro-reflective screen element is oriented according to its local position on the screen, with elements at different locations having different orientations. This local quality approach ensures that incident angles are minimized across the entire screen surface, improving brightness and uniformity while allowing the screen as a whole to maintain a simple planar structure.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system achieves significantly improved image brightness and uniformity, allowing multiple viewers to experience customized video streams and 3D immersive viewing, with brightness increased by a factor of 100 to 500 compared to traditional systems, while reducing complexity and cost.
Implementation Method 1
a retro-reflective screen having retro-reflective screen elements that reflect light along a direction that is substantially non parallel to the direction of propagation of the light
Implementation Method 2
individual elements of the retro-reflective screen may be optimized based on location and/or orientation of the screen elements relative to the projector in order to minimize the distribution of incident angles
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods provide a retro-reflective screen covered with a screen material. The retro-reflective screen has a plurality of retro-reflective screen elements positioned within the screen material. At least one of the plurality of retro-reflective screen elements is oriented so as to have an incident angle that is less than 45 degrees. Additionally, a portion of the screen material that corresponds to the at least one screen element has an incident angle that is greater than the incident angle of the at least one screen element. Additionally, the system also comprises at least one projector that (i) generates light characterizing an image or video and (ii) projects the light onto the retro-reflective screen.