Recently, Ma Weijie, a doctoral student jointly trained by the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Fudan University, published his research on naked-eye 3D technology in the journal Nature after two years of meticulous refinement. The work presents EyeReal, a next-generation naked-eye 3D display system. This achievement is the first to utilize AI technology to enable a full-parallax naked-eye 3D display with an ultra-wide viewing range on a desktop-scale screen. It has been evaluated by Nature reviewers as “solving the fundamental challenge that has long existed in this field”.
The “breakthrough” of naked-eye 3D makes it more suitable for prolonged, comfortable, and natural viewing and interaction. While digital holographic displays can offer extremely high viewing angles and image quality, they must compress the display size to that of a fingernail. Naked-eye 3D displays, in contrast, can provide a larger-scale 3D viewing experience.
Imagine a 3D screen in front of you. You would want it to meet several criteria: The screen must be large enough to see details clearly, like a standard monitor. The viewing angle must be wide enough so you don’t have to fight for the “sweet spot” as in a movie theater, allowing you to see a continuous, smooth 3D effect while moving left and right. The visual experience must be authentic, with continuous, natural imagery free from any disorienting distortion.
To achieve this goal, a display must reconstruct the complete light field of an object, simulating the light it emits in all directions. However, this is nearly impossible in practice, as reconstructing a full light field requires massive amounts of optical information – a scale comparable to astronomical figures. In physical optics, a law known as the “spatial bandwidth product” acts as an invisible shackle, strictly limiting the total amount of optical information that can be transmitted. Large size, wide viewing angle, and continuity thus form an “impossible triangle”, forcing all previous technical solutions to choose only two of the three, which has hindered naked-eye 3D experiences from entering daily life.
Given these physical constraints, achieving large dimensions, a wide viewing angle, and visual continuity necessitates real-time optimization using AI. To this end, Ma proposed an active solution that dynamically optimizes the use of a limited information “budget”. This approach drives an AI engine to focus all information in real-time on the viewer’s line of sight, without increasing hardware costs. Deep learning algorithms calculate the optimal display scheme for the human eye in each observation direction within milliseconds, ensuring information follows wherever the gaze goes.
This achievement thus breaks the traditional trade-off, allowing for the coexistence of large-sized imagery and an ultra-wide, free, continuous viewing range. Fully compatible with consumer-grade LCD panels and requiring no complex optical components or specialized hardware, the system achieves a desktop-level display size with a super-wide field of view exceeding 100 degrees, enabling real-time 3D display with full parallax (both horizontal and vertical). This fundamentally avoids the dizziness and discomfort caused by pupil mismatch common in traditional 3D displays, striking a balance where one can “have one’s cake and eat it too “.
For scientific research, it offers a completely new mode of information presentation. Scientists can interact with three-dimensional data, such as protein structures and celestial models, more intuitively and immersively, potentially leading to new scientific discoveries. For artificial intelligence, it helps AI models understand and simulate the complex light fields of the real physical world more accurately, a key link in moving “AI for Science” toward practical reality.
Speaking of the future, Ma Weijie said, “After graduation, I will continue to refine naked-eye 3D display technology, further optimize algorithms, improve display quality, and strive to put it into practical application.” He envisions a future where naked-eye 3D displays become a “digital gateway” in our lives. Ordinarily, it would appear as a simple pane of transparent glass; once activated, it transforms into a profound window into the digital world.
In this window, virtual characters and objects possess real volume, light, shadow, and a sense of depth. One can interact with them as naturally as in reality. The boundary between the virtual and the real would dissolve completely in that moment.
His motivation for undertaking this project was purely interest-driven. Indeed, without such intrinsic motivation, he acknowledges that perseverance would have been impossible given the considerable challenges involved. From sourcing second-hand components and assembling prototypes to refining the final manuscript, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to this research endeavor over two years.