The patented technology is simple, yet elegant. If a ray of light is injected into a wedge shaped pane of glass, then each time the ray bounces off the angled glass/air interface, its direction will change with respect to the other glass/air interface. Repeated bounces will lead to the angle between the ray and the interface normal getting progressively smaller until the critical angle at which rays undergo total internal reflection is reached and the ray will emerge from the sheet of glass.

When a ray enters the glass, the larger the angle between it and the normal, the greater the number of bounces will be required before it emerges. Since the number of required bounces is directly proportional to the distance the ray will travel up the Wedge® display before emerging, the angle of entry can be used to control the vertical position of emergence. So, by modulating rays injected at a variety of angles, an image from the edge of the Wedge® display is projected onto its side.

When the rays emerge from the Wedge® display, they travel almost vertically, so a diffusive screen is used to make the projected image visible.

The image to be displayed originates from a video projector and is focused at a shallow angle onto the edge of a flat plate of glass. Once within the Flat Plate, rays from the far left and far right columns of the video projector diverge to either side of the sheet, at which distance the sheet terminates and the rays pass into the bottom of the Wedge® display itself.

In order to produce a conventional looking display, the flat plate is folded behind the Wedge® display:

In the future with the advent of small and affordable laser projectors, and using mechanical scanning of the laser beam into the corner of the panel, it should be possible to eliminate the need for the flat plate.