Screen-door effect

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Screen-door effect

The screen-door effect (SDE) is a <a href="/en/Visual_artifact" title="Visual artifact" class="wl">visual artifact</a> of displays, where the fine lines separating <a href="/en/Pixel" title="Pixel" class="wl">pixels</a> (or <a href="/en/Subpixel" title="Subpixel" class="mw-redirect wl">subpixels</a>) become visible in the displayed <a href="/en/Image" title="Image" class="wl">image</a>. This can be seen in <a href="/en/Digital_projector" title="Digital projector" class="mw-redirect wl">digital projector</a> images and regular displays under magnification or at close range, but the increases in display resolutions have made this much less significant. More recently, the screen door effect has been an issue with <a href="/en/Virtual_reality_headset" title="Virtual reality headset" class="wl">virtual reality headsets</a> and other <a href="/en/Head-mounted_display" title="Head-mounted display" class="wl">head-mounted displays</a>, because these are viewed at a much closer distance, and stretch a single display across a much wider <a href="/en/Field_of_view" title="Field of view" class="wl">field of view</a>.<a href="#cite_note-1" style="counter-reset: mw-Ref 1;">[1]</a>


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<figure class="mw-halign-right wiki-thumb"><a href="/en/File:Screen-door_effect.jpg" class="mw-file-description image media-thumb" data-hash="File:Screen-door_effect.jpg"><img loading="lazy" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Screen-door_effect.jpg/280px-Screen-door_effect.jpg" decoding="async" data-file-width="2816" data-file-height="2112" data-file-type="bitmap" height="210" width="280" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Screen-door_effect.jpg/420px-Screen-door_effect.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Screen-door_effect.jpg/560px-Screen-door_effect.jpg 2x" alt="Screen-door_effect.jpg"></a><figcaption>Demonstration of the screen door effect.</figcaption></figure>

The screen-door effect is a visual artifact of displays, where the fine lines separating pixels become visible in the displayed image. This can be seen in digital projector images and regular displays under magnification or at close range, but the increases in display resolutions have made this much less significant.  More recently, the screen door effect has been an issue with virtual reality headsets and other head-mounted displays, because these are viewed at a much closer distance, and stretch a single display across a much wider field of view. 