Autostereoscopic Maps on the Basis of Lenticular Foils

The availability of high quality 3D-data sets, both geometry and texture, opens the door to produce high quality 3-dimensional displays. Most of the principles of 3D-displaying are based on viewing aids or special illumination and are therefore combined with tiredness by intensive using. One method is different in this case and additional the colour is also useful to transport content: Lenticular foil displays - consisting of small micro-lenses - offer the production of flat transportable displays which can be viewed in 3D without any viewing aids. These micro-lenses on a transparent plastic foil allow the map user to view the integral of two or more interlaced strips of stereo-mates through this foil with the left and right eye respectively. The calculation of both the strip width and the interlacing is done by means of commercially available software. The mbmSystems GmbH based in Dresden is the world-leading company in production of lenticular foil maps. The central parts of the map production are the modelling, rendering and interlacing of well-defined stereomates for the lenticluar foil displays. The print process runs in quality managed systems to assure the necessary accuracies. So a lot of possibilities for displaying are available, like changing letterings for different contents or multi-lingual maps, hovering lettering for the minimal covering of image content and flip images. Due to the interlacing of the sub-millimetre strips of the stereo-mates and the resulting decomposition in x-direction the integration of well-designed and easily legible signatures and letterings represent a challenge. The presentation describes the lenticular lens principle, the image map generation and, in particular, the challenges of further research.