Date: Jan 15, 2010 Author: Dale McGeehon Source: MDA (
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by Dale McGeehon/dmcgeehon@nttc.edu
Drivers with poor eyesight may soon have technology in automobiles that will help them see a road's edges or possible hazards more clearly, and shop owners may be able to display colorful images onto their store-front windows because of a projection system innovation.
The system, developed by SuperImaging, Inc. (Fremont, CA), employs a specialized projector that directs invisible light onto glass that has been infused with nanomaterials, which convert the wavelengths of invisible light into visible wavelengths, causing them to glow in every direction, creating an image.
MDA originally funded SuperImaging (previously known as LS Technologies) through a 2004 Phase I SBIR contract to develop a high-performance image projector that would create simulations to test sensors as well as guidance, tracking, and navigation systems.
Today, the company continues to fine-tune its product while pursuing commercial applications in the automotive and marketing industries. Its most developed product, which it calls TransPlay™, has been licensed by General Motors. The car manufacturer took SuperImaging's product and added its own software to develop a smart windshield that displays road markings similar to the projected first-down yellow lines seen when watching televised football games.
Similarly, the military could use the same technology in its tanks, trucks, helicopters, and jets to help pilots and drivers avoid obstacles when environmental conditions create low visibility.
TransPlay also has an application in directional signage, much like with GPS devices. Blinking arrows appear on the windshield, telling drivers where to turn or to go straight. While the technology has an advantage over GPS navigation aids, in that images are displayed on the windshield as opposed to in a small device outside the driver's field of vision, company officials do not anticipate the application to replace GPS products for a year or two because SuperImaging's technology displays only in one color and without depicting the driver's position on a map.
The company believes its greatest commercialization potential lies in the retail signage market. Company developers envision a final product that will allow shop owners, for example, to display large three-color advertisements, up to three meters square in size, on their store-front windows, or on display cases, such as in jewelry stores.
"Companies have tremendous merchandizing expenses for their seasonal launches," said Doug Bragdon, director of business development for SuperImaging. "If we're a large clothing retailer and we're coming out with a spring line or a new line of clothing, we have to send out new posters, new marketing materials to all of our locations. What if, instead of that, you had projection devices at all these locations and you just sent them new files?"
The company claims that its approach, named MediaGlass™, can generate images that glow three times as bright as competing, heads-up-display technologies. And, compared with similar technologies, the SuperImaging projector can be placed three times farther away from the glass, allowing engineers more flexibility in how retail window displays are designed.
An additional key discriminator of SuperImaging's technology is its viewability. In reflected heads-up displays, a viewer must be located at a certain angle to see an image displayed on a screen. With MediaGlass, however, a viewer can see the image from a broader angle because the light from the glass emits in 360 degrees.
The technology also could provide higher-contrast images to the home entertainment industry. On typical home entertainment screens, black spaces are really just the screen's surface without any projected light reflected onto it. In contrast, SuperImaging's system could make a black screen glow in any color because the wavelength would be converted on the screen.
SuperImaging currently offers a one-color (blue) commercial signage system, and company leaders plan to release a two-color version (with green) in 2010.
For a third color—red—to be displayed on glass, the projector's laser diodes need to emit a certain wavelength, but those diodes are not on the market yet because they are expensive to manufacture. The company is looking for a partner that could help them in that regard, and hopes to have that color available in 2011.
