I suppose resolution is to displays just like how one can never have enough clothes in the wardrobe with each passing season. Having said that, the number of pixels that are being crammed into our displays – on TVs to mobile devices especially, continue to increase in due time. However, the higher the resolution, the more power consuming it is, not to mention it gets more expensive, meaning only the richer folks out there will be able to enjoy such technological advancements. NVIDIA researchers could have stumbled upon a win-win solution for all – by cascading a couple of low-resolution panels so that pixel density is increased without costing a bomb.
Sometimes in life, it seems that the solution to a nagging problem could prove to be so simple, that one might actually say “Why didn’t I think of that?” when presented with it. NVIDIA researchers took apart a couple of 1,280 x 800 LCD panels, before rebuilding them into a single display albeit with pixels that have been offset a wee bit, in addition to throwing in a filter to remove polarization conflicts.
Some customized software is required, of course, to weave its magic, so that the display components will work in a coordinated manner. This prototype is known as a “cascaded display,” where initial tests point to a quadruple increase in the spatial resolution of the original panels. Much work still needs to be done to improve it further for consumer class use, but the concept has already been proven. [Press Release]