Think Differently: a New Method to Create Lenticular- and Integral-Pictures

The lenticular technique is an autostereoscopic presentation technique based on two cooperating components - a lenticular plate and a lenticular base picture underneath it. Both have to be adjusted very precisely in order to reconstruct a visible picture with a spatial impact on the observer. In the middle of the 1970s the interlace-method was established as a standard procedure for the generation of lenticular base pictures. During the past 15 to 20 years complementary methods have been developed based on the advance in computer technology. The traditional concept of handling the half images, as used with basically every other stereoscopic presentation technique, was given up: all of the half cylinder lenses on a lenticular plate are supplied with individually adjusted base images. This new approach and methodical changes permits in the further development a great potential for the improvement of the visible quality of spatial images and of the lenticular hardware itself. The up to now well-defined and uniform surfaces of the lenticular plates may now be diversified for more flexibility. This paper will present different techniques regarding this development. The focus will be put on the VLR method (virtual lenticular rendering-method), which creates new spatial image attributes an qualities, e.g. a considerably expanded viewing area in front of the autostereogram, the improved display of outlines of the objects and the automated coding of motion parallaxes.