pCubee: 3D without the glasses

After a wave of 3D movies such as Alice in Wonderland and Avatar, and a number of television manufacturers producing 3D TVs this year, there is growing interest in a three-dimensional viewing experience. The usual 3D technology uses a stereoscopic principle in which a slightly different image is presented to each eye, thanks to the special glasses the viewer has to wear. Now a device named pCubee gives you the experience of 3D without the need for the glasses.

The pCubee consists of five LCD screens arranged as a cubic “fish tank” box that viewers can pick up, tilt, shake or turn to watch the 3D content or play games with virtual objects that seem to be within the box. Instead of stereoscopy, the device uses a principle called motion parallax, which is one of the means by which we usually perceive depth in a three dimensional scene. Motion parallax is a cue the brain is able to use to sense depth, because the movements of objects across our field of view depends on their relative distance from us. Having the box move means viewers do not need to move their heads to see the effect.