type public industry electronics founded 1998 as micropix 2004 as crlo displays ltd 2005 as forth dimension displays 2011 acquired by kopin corporation but remains as forth dimension displays headquarters dalgety bay fife scotland united kingdom products microdisplays revenue us 6 million 2010 number of employees 38 2011 website www.forthdd.com forth dimension displays forthdd is a british optoelectronics company based in dalgety bay fife united kingdom . contents 1 company overview 2 technology 3 products 4 applications 5 references 6 external links company overview edit originally founded in 1998 as micropix and known later as crl opto and crlo displays forthdd makes high resolution microdisplays and spatial light modulators slm . the microdisplays are used in near to eye nte applications for the military training and simulation medical imagery virtual reality and high definition image processing industries . the slms are used for structured light projection in 3d optical metrology and 3d super resolution microscopy . 1 headquartered in dalgety bay scotland forthdd also operates sales offices in the united states germany and japan and a customer support office in germany . 2 previously funded by venture capitalists in january 2011 forthdd was acquired by kopin corporation a nasdaq listed company based in taunton massachusetts usa . 3 technology edit microdisplay forthdd s microdisplays and slms are based on a proprietary high speed ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon lcos platform protected by a number of patents . 4 for the generation of colour and greyscale forthdd s microdisplays use a process called time domain imaging tdi . 5 this process involves rendering the red green and blue colour components which make up an image sequentially over time at high speed . this happens so fast that the human visual system integrates the components into a single full colour image . this enables the microdisplays to use the same pixel mirror for all three colour components and avoids the artifacts associated with sub pixels . 6 lcos technology history the first lcos device originated in 1973 followed by a development of a liquid crystal light valve ten years later . it was not until 1993 that a microdisplay with a resolution sufficient for use as a display was reported by displaytech now citizen finedevices . it was capable of full red green blue image generation enabled by the use of a fast switching ferroelectric liquid crystal . during the early part of the 21st century many microdisplay manufacturers focused on applying the technology to rear projection based high definition television hdtv systems . however due to developments in the manufacturing process of large panel liquid crystal display televisions lcd tvs and resulting drops in the cost of components lcd based tvs matured into the more popular consumer choice . by late 2007 almost all microdisplay rear projection television rptv manufacturers had withdrawn their tvs from production . 7 as a result a number of microdisplay manufacturers either disappeared completely or started working on other technologies . some companies diversified whilst others concentrated on a niche market instead . products edit wxga r5 compared to 2 coin forthdd is a supplier of microdisplays for near to eye nte applications and spatial light modulators for fringe projection systems . 8 forthdd supplies full colour all digital qxga 2048 1536 sxga 1280 1024 and wxga 1280 768 microdisplays . these products are available as chipsets and board level based products . 9 applications edit forthdd s microdisplays are typically used in the following application areas training and virtual environments medical systems and electronic viewfinders evfs . later system developments have allowed forthdd to enter markets such as 3d optical metrology and using phase modulation super resolution microscopy . 10 11 nvis nvisor sx60 training and virtual environments forthdd s microdisplays can be found in various training and simulation applications across military and civilian environments within devices such as virtual binoculars monocular viewers and most commonly immersive hmds 12 for example in nvis hmds 13 14 . by using hmds to immerse the user in the virtual 3d environment different scenarios which may be too dangerous or expensive to replicate in the real world can be explored . medical systems microdisplays can be used in high end medical surgical microscopes in order to either replace the optical image or overlay data on the image e.g. an mri scan . 15 when combined with a microdisplay the microscope becomes a more powerful tool and permits users to navigate the desired surface in real time with a very high degree of accuracy . 16 other medical applications include viewing systems such as endoscopes . 17 film and television forthdd s microdisplays are used in electronic viewfinders evfs for hd digital cinema cameras . 18 arri uses forthdd s technology in its evfs . 19 3d optical metrology forthdd s microdisplays are used for fringe projection and confocal inspection in non contact surface quality inspection systems 20 for example in sensofar products 21 . references edit forth dimension displays company page forth dimension displays contact page business 7 accessed february 3 2011 forth dimension displays technology page compute scotland accessed february 3 2011 forth dimension displays technology page generating colour vettese d. microdisplays liquid crystal on silicon . nature photonics 2010 vol . 4 p. 752 754 scottish optoelectronics association members forth dimension displays accessed january 17 2011 scottish optoelectronics association members forth dimension displays accessed january 17 2011 forth dimension displays applications page compute scotland accessed january 17 2011 forth dimension displays applications page training and virtual environments section nvis support page nvis technology page display daily accessed january 31 2011 forth dimension displays applications page medical section display daily accessed january 18 2011 display daily accessed january 18 2011 adlershof news accessed june 13 2011 forth dimension displays applications page 3d metrology section sensofar news page accessed june 13 2011 external links edit forth dimension displays retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title forth dimension displays & oldid 740325581 categories display technologyliquid crystal displayscompanies of the united kingdomcompanies established in 1998 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export 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