Polarization based stereoscopic display characterization

Abstract we show that it is possible to characterize precisely polarization based stereoscopic 3D displays measuring directly the polarization state of their light emission. Two types of polarization measurements are realized using viewing and imaging instruments. Fourier optics viewing angle instruments is used to measure the radiance and the Stoke vector at different locations versus incidence and azimuth angles at 31 wavelengths in the visible range. A modulated vertical structure is detected which comes from the internal structure of the display. Only limited areas show full left and right circular polarization for left and right view respectively. The ellipticity is maximized in the green but decreases in the blue and red domains and some light is always unpolarized. Qualified binocular viewing space can be computed using resulting luminance for right and left view and measuring transmittance and phase shifts of the glasses. A low 3D contrast of only 3.4 is obtained across very limited regions of space in front of the displays. Inhomogeneity problems on the display surface are also detected using imaging polarimetry