Displays

by Darrell and Saurabh

One approach is to look at all the various display technologies available out there.

These are the generic specs that are available for users on sites like newegg.com.

CRT

            Screen Size/Viewable Size

Resolution

            Dot Pitch

            Refresh Rate

            Size/Weight

LCD

            Screen Size

            Resolution

            Pixel Pitch

            Viewing Angle

            Display Colors

            Brightness

            Contrast Ratio

            Response Time

            Size/Weight

Projection

            Type - LCD/DLP

            Lens

            Lamp Life

            Aspect Ratio

            Display Size

            Native Resolution

            Throw Distance

            Brightness

            Contrast Ratio

            Size/Weight

Next Generations Displays

Eink

EyeBud Wearable Headset

These parameters are tied to the display technology and their purpose is to let users make a decision on what they want to buy. Different combinations of these parameters result in different perceived effects of the display on the user. What we are interested in is the parameters that change the perceived effects and these parameters should be generalized to match with all display technologies.

From this we come up with some possibilities for possible critical parameters of a display:

Possible Critical parameters for simple displays:

Resolution - (1024x768 etc)

Display Screen Size - 19" LCD, 40" projection (diagonal) etc  + Aspect Ratios

Dot Pitch/Pixel Density - This is actually a combination of the above two parameters

Resolution/Screen Size = pixel density (We could ignore the above two and just use this one, however it might make more sense to use two numbers instead of just one)

Device Form Factor - CRT big bulky, LCD thin light, Projector small but throw distance.

Maybe ?

Colors - 16.2 million colors

Contrast - Ratio dark/light

Brightness - Lumens

These are the various choices we have for simple displays. Wall displays can be considered to be a summation of a whole bunch of simple displays and could be considered to have all the characteristics of small displays. In addition Wall Displays will also have the following characteristics irrespective of technology used:

            + Large Screen leading to possibility of Physical Navigation. Physical Navigation can be a upside or a downside depending on the "cost of accessing the information" This could be something like how much physical navigation is necessary to reach the extreme ends of the display or be calculated depending on the cost of access discussion we had in class.

            + Immersive environment - By Immersive we mean the realism in terms of size and details of the objects being displayed.  Not sure how this could be calculated but its something on the lines of how much of our visual bandwidth is filled up by the display.

These could be considered the end results of the resolution and screen size parameters seen in simple displays. In the wall display realm users would probably be interested in these higher level concepts rather than looking at resolution and size individually.

Other issues that users might be interested in while looking at large displays.

            + Reconfigurable

            - Rendering issues, custom software

            - Portability

Some technology dependant parameters

Tiled LCD

            Bezels

            Viewing Angle

Front/Rear Projection

            Brightness Falloff

            Alignment

            Color Correction

Some open questions:

Where does pricing fall in all this? Does cost of the display matter?

2D vs 3D display space: Should they be combined or kept separate?

Interaction techniques? Should displays simply be considered output devices?