Does your display application require a touchscreen that can withstand the challenges of vandal abuse? When your touchscreen is subjected to unattended public access interactivity, vandal proofing can be a constant battle. Planar has published a great post on Vandal-proof Touchscreens, items to consider when installing in vandal-prone environments and Planar's capabilities in Optical Bonding.

Planar 3D Monitors utilise passive 3D glasses whereas the Avatar 3D movie experience depends on active shutter glasses. What does that mean? Went to see the Avatar 3D finally and got this question from my friend. So, here's the explanation:

The structure of the glasses is different. The passive glasses are polarized. Planar’s glasses have linear polarization, which is different in each lens by 90 degrees, for example, so that one lens has horizontal and the other vertical polarization. In the case of Planar’s 3D monitors, the StereoMirror technology is utilised to show two different pictures from two different displays so, that each eye gets a different image – simultaneously. Difference here compared to the Avatar 3D experience with the active glasses is, that there is no flicker: in Avatar your eyes are basically getting an image alternating in left- and right-eye. This can give a slight feeling of dizziness and the view seems darker as one eye only sees at any one time. When going to see Avatar 3D, I noticed slight feeling of disorientation during the commercials but it vanished after the eyes adjusted to the shutter glasses.

One main difference is, that active shutter glasses require power of some sort, whereas passive glasses don’t. This adds to the design: active shutter glasses look bulky whereas passive glasses can be light almost like the smallest of sunglasses. This is why they also easily ”vanish” at exhibitions where we’ve demoed the Planar 3D monitors: people mistake them for sunglasses. Well, now you know: they are not (so please return them, when you next see us at the show!).

The most memorable difference for me as the user - at least in the case of Planar’s passive 3D glasses versus active or so-called shutter glasses used to view the 3D version of the film Avatar - was the pain on the nose! Yes, for me at least, the active 3D glasses proved heavy and hard on the nose. Had to sit with my index finger stuck between the glasses and my nose for some part of the film... The passive glasses are nice and light in comparison!

Oh, and have a look at the latest in 3D displays: Flyfire - no need for the glasses NOR the display itself! Wonder when they start making movies with THIS solution...?

Water ingress testing on your rugged display can be performed in several ways. In this image, you see a Planar LA1750RTZ prototype undergoing a water ingress test with 65 gallons of water a minute, from a 1" diameter fire hose, for almost 5 minutes. Imagine the pressure on the display panel and enclosure from this amount of water over the 5 minute duration! This is one surefire way to test any water seepage into your display and provides valuable test information to prevent the occurance.

Displays are used in all sort of outdoor, rugged environments where they are subjected to liquid elements. From marine to emergency and heavy equipment applications, displays used in these functions are often submitted to considerable amounts of water and other liquids. And, the last thing you want to have happen is a display malfunction due to an ingress.

How would you like to see other tests conducted on displays for your rugged applications?

Does your display application require a touchscreen that can withstand the challenges of vandal abuse? When your touchscreen is subjected to unattended public access interactivity, vandal proofing can be a constant battle. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer when seeking a vandal proof solution.

However, there are means of increasing resistance to vandal abuse which can generally be addressed in three broad areas: impact protection, scratch/abrasion protection and liquid ingress protection.

Impact and scratch/abrasion damage are minimized by use of added glass top surfaces. Polymers, such as polycarbonate which are highly impact resistant, provide additional protection against impact, scratch and abrasion destruction. Optical bonding, provided by Planar Systems, fills the gap between the protective glass and LCD, keeping out dust and moisture and providing liquid ingress protection.

In addition, glass lamination and glass heat tempering will improve resistance to breakage. This approah can be applied to SAW, surface capacitive, projected capacitive, camera IR and matrix IR touch screens. Newer touch technologies such as force activated technologies can use a variety of tranparent media.