Lenticular lenses

Lenticular lenses (also called lenticular arrays) are a glasses-free 3D display technology that uses a sheet of cylindrical lenses aligned over a pixel grid to direct different images to each eye. They are designed so taht when viewed from slighlty different angles, different parts of the underneath pixels are shown. Unlike parallax barriers, they refract light rather than block it, improving brightness and viewing angles.

First designs of lenticular lenses cover an exact number of pixels (2, 3, 4...) but later move to slanted designs because these designs can eliminate visible Moiré patterns and improves smoothness in image transitions. These designs also enable the use of eye tracked systems, as they can move the viewing cone following user's eyes.

Lenticular lens supports both single viewer (left and right view) and multiple viewpoints (e.g., 8-view, 16-view) for motion parallax.

A particularly interesting case is when the lenticular lens design combines LC layers with a transparent rigid plastic becuase that allows to have 2D/3D switching. This is when the displays dynamically adjust lens behavior, showing no optical effect for 2D content and enabling it with 3D content.

Lenticular lenses are uUsed in commercial signage, currently available autostereoscopic displays.