New Technology Knows When You Are Wearing 3D Glasses

An innovative new technology automatically detects when you are wearing 3D glasses. The device allows your television to recognise if you’re watching in 3D, Gizmag reports. If the device then sees that you haven’t got your 3D stereoscopic glasses on then it will automatically switch to 2D.

The technology has been developed by Italian tech company Sisvel in conjunction with 3DSwitch.

“The glasses detection technology works in different ways depending on the TV screen’s technology,” says Dario Pennisi from Sisvel.

“For active glasses, given the already high cost of the glasses and [that] these already contain a battery and some electronics, our solution comprises a capacitive sensor that ‘feels’ the head of the viewer and uses this information to send infrared commands to the TV, hence the additional cost of this solution if basically zero.

“For passive glasses, the TVs have to be equipped with a camera that looks at the viewers and has some special electronics to recognize if they are wearing glasses and can differentiate between ordinary glasses and polarized glasses for stereoscopic viewing.

“In this case, of course, there is an additional cost on the TV which can be kept to a minimum as we use a technology similar to the one used on the Wii remote, which also uses a camera to sense the infrared sensor bar,” he added.

The technology will not be sold directly to the consumer but will instead be licensed to 3D television manufacturers. Dario Pennisi from Sisvel said:

“We are not selling finished products but rather licensing our technologies to manufacturers.”

There is no news on when the 3DSwitch technology will be available. The news comes after the release of the Samsung 3D TV set, along with the news that Sony are taking pre-orders for their 3D TV. The summer of 2010 will also see the release of the Philips 3DTV 9000 series