Wide-viewing integral three-dimensional imaging by use of orthogonal polarization switching

A wide-viewing integral three-dimensional (3D) imaging system that adopts orthogonal polarization switching is proposed and demonstrated. In our scheme, the polarizing sheet attached to the lens array and the orthogonal polarization switching of the elemental image array perform elemental lens switching. The experimental results document that the viewing angle becomes remarkably wider than that of the conventional method. The distinguishing feature of our system is that it requires no mechanical moving part. In addition, because a commercially available polarization shutter screen is used for electrical switching, it is easy to implement this as a practical system. We believe that the proposed method facilitates the practical use of this wide-viewing integral 3D imaging system. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.