LG to Demo First 3D Game Conversion Engine for Smartphones

LG Optimus

Korean electronics giant LG announced today that it will be demonstrating a 2D to 3D game conversion engine for smartphones at IFA 2011 in Germany next week.

The engine is based on the Open GL specification and will enable many gaming companies to serve up 3D versions of their existing 2D games.

LG’s 3D technology evangelist Henry Nho elaborated on how it works:

[It] automatically recognizes the depth information based on the location of each object and separates the 2D graphic images for each eye. Using the existing depth information, the [converter] generates two different images — one for the foreground and one for the background. It then uses a thin film called Parallax Barrier on the display to show the left image to the left eye and the right image to the right eye, creating an illusion of visual depth.

While a number of companies have bet heavily on 3D (LG, Sony, Toshiba to name a few), one of the problems facing the new technology is ensuring that there is enough content to make it an attractive buy for consumers. For LG, this effort makes its Optimus 3D smartphone and tablet look marginally better, if more games can be presented in a 3Dformat.

According to the announcement, 3D gameplay requires only that the game converter is installed, and then 2D games which have been optimized for conversion can be played in 3D. Of course, it remains to be seen exactly how many games will end up being optimized, but LG says that 50 games will be available by October, and another 50 by the end of the year.