A home viewing device comprising a casing for positioning in front of a screen for receiving separate left and right eye images. The viewing device is arranged to display said images on separate left and right eye axes by means of a first fully reflective surface inclined to the axis of the first eye image and for reflecting the image onto a second fully reflective surface for reflecting the first eye image along the viewing axis, and a third fully reflective surface inclined to the axis of the second eye image for reflecting that image onto a semireflective surface for reflecting the second eye image along the viewing axis. Different polarizing means are positioned in the paths of the first and second eye images so that the images are differently polarized whereby a viewer with correspondingly polarized glasses can discern the different images to obtain a three-dimensional effect.
A three dimensional display is provided which can. operate in an autostereoscopic mode, requiring no viewing aid, and a stereoscopic mode, requiring a viewing aid such as polarized spectacles. In the autostereosocopic mode, light from illuminators is imaged by lenses through LCD display panels at regions where the left and right eyes of an observer are located. Thus, a two dimensional image displayed on one panel is visible to the right eye of the observer whereas a two dimensional image displayed by the other panel to visible to the left eye of the observer. In the stereoscopic mode, light from the illuminators through the LCD panels is visible throughout an extended region by both eyes of the observer. However, the light from the panels is polarized in mutually perpendicular directions and the spectacles comprise polarizers for the left and right eyes which substantially pass only light corresponding to the left and right images, respectively.
