Science fiction has brought us visions of holographic visualization right in our living room but the current technologies to deliver this sort of experience have been somewhat unappetizing. Either they require an annoying set of glasses or produce a surface effect with an extremely narrow viewing range. Both of these make current 3D technology onerous for groups to watch together in any sort of familial setting.

Apple looks to change this problem with their newest patent at the USPTO, which describes an almost sci-fi technology that would permit a room filled with people to experience the 3D. According to GigaOM,

Apple’s patent describes a rather complicated set-up involving a motion-tracking system that monitors the eyes of multiple users, then projects pixels onto a “projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function.” The screen would essentially deliver different views for different people based on their eye position.

Glass-less 3-D is available now, but it suffers from a narrow viewing angle that makes it hard for groups of TV viewers to enjoy. That’s made it a tough sell for TVs, but has allowed it to be deployed in handsets. Nintendo is working on a 3DS handheld that will deploy the technology.

If Apple’s technology works, it could be a breakthrough for home 3-D use. Sales of 3-D displays have been slow to take off, with DisplaySearch projecting sales of 1.6 million sets shipped this year, just 2 percent of all TVs. Part of the problem is the glasses, which are not only uncomfortable for many users, but also expensive — usually costing more than $100 per pair. That makes it hard to outfit a large family, not to mention something like a 3-D Superbowl party.

While this technology has huge implications for in-home entertainment, it’s hard to dismiss it for other types of visualization. Anyone who watches enough current television shows we’ve seen that a lot of medial can crime shows like to push the edge of input and visualization technology on-screen (most of which don’t exist in real life) and some of them are near-holographic in nature. Apple suggests that this technology could also be useful for medical, flight simulation, air traffic control, military, et cetera. Perhaps these different professions can take some cues from Hollywood in how to deploy these technologies—they’ve at least been pretending to use them for a lot longer than anyone else.

Back to home entertainment, this sort of technology could have huge and awesome implications for gaming.

In fact, with Kinect homebrew hackers developing stereoscopic vision for Kinect cameras to produce their own 3D processing, this sort of technology could become an excellent basis for video game interaction. It may not produce actual holograms, but the illusion of three-dimensions is more than enough to heighten the entertainment of game players. Plus, we could all imagine what it might be like to both see and be able to interact with 3D elements on a screen. “It’s like I could reach out and touch it!” Combine these two technologies and suddenly we do have virtual, three-dimensional projections, that would react to “touch.”

If you’d like to read through the legalese of the patent text itself, it’s available at the USPTO.