Chris Davies - May 27, 2021, 8:45am CDT
Acer wants to bring stereoscopic 3D to laptops, with a new SpatialLabs display that promises to float graphics right out of a laptop’s screen without demanding you wear special glasses to see them. The system instead combines a switchable lenticular lens screen with an eye-tracking camera, all fitted into a prototype ConceptD notebook.
3D certainly isn’t new, and neither are attempts to bring it to graphics pros in a usable way. The reality, though, is that clunky glasses and mediocre visual quality has generally undermined such efforts.
Acer thinks SpatialLabs is different. The screen is an Ultra HD resolution 2D panel, with a liquid crystal lenticular lens that’s been optically bonded on top of it. That can switch the screen between 2D to 3D modes, with an eye-tracking stereo camera array at the top of the display deciding how to split up the graphics for each eye.
Acer claims it’s created a way to display holographic 3D images from a laptop.
The technology is called “SpatialLabs,” and it promises to help graphic artists better visualize their creations. The PC maker plans to debut the system on Thursday, ahead of Computex, using a specialized Acer ConceptD notebook.
The system works by leveraging a stereoscopic 3D display, an eye-tracking camera, and real-time rendering technologies on the PC. Combined together, the technologies can create the illusion that objects are emerging from the display.
“Content literally floats in front of the screen, allowing creators to examine their creations in real-time and 360 degrees without the need for specialized glasses,” Acer says.
Image: Acer
Acer has announced SpatialLabs, a new 3D technology that will debut on the company’s ConceptD laptops. I got a chance to try it. It’s not something we’ll realistically see on a consumer device anytime soon but it’s pretty dang cool nonetheless.
SpatialLabs is, according to Acer, “a suite of experiences empowered by cutting-edge optical solutions.” Plainly, it’s a set of tools that makes 3D work look very realistic and cool without requiring special glasses to see it. It delivers content in Stereoscopic 3D, which presents a pair of nearly-but-not-quite-identical 2D images (one to each eye) that combine in your brain to look like one 3D picture. (It’s essentially imitating what your eyes already do.)
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