So I was playing racquetball today and started thinking about why it wasn’t a more popular spectator sport. Obviously, the fact that they only have one transparent wall (if even that) limits the viewability and appeal to television audiences.

So I thought, “what if all the non-floor surfaces were transparent?” But then realized that the players would probably have serious trouble seeing the ball without that nice ball-on-white contrast.

They make this stuff called smart glass that uses liquid crystal technology to change from transparent to opaque. What if a circuit was to designed to alternate the glass between clear and transparent at a designated frequency, probably something 60hz or higher, and you had cameras set to capture at half that rate, syncing them with the clear cycle of the smart glass? In theory, that would allow them to see into the court as if the glass were absolutely transparent, right?

That would leave the players looking at walls that are somewhere between opaque and translucent, so we would need something for them as well. Now, it’s already pretty ubiquitous that racquetball players wear safety glasses to protect their eyes, what if they were LCD shutter glasses? They would be almost like this but instead of alternating left and right eyes, both sides would be synced to be “open” on the opaque cycle of the smart glass, giving the illusion of normal racquetball court walls.

If a live audience was desired, spectators could wear LCD shutter glasses as well that were synced with the transparent cycle of the smart glass.

I realize this would be outrageously cost-prohibitive, and the effort to effect ratio may not be worth it, but it wouldn’t it be freaking cool?

(If it even worked)

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under misc., random ideas, thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.