If you want a futuristic peek into what Apple is cooking up, their patent applications are always a good place to start. One of the latest foretells 3D displays capable of allowing viewers to “look around” an object, according to MacRumors.

Of course, 3D imagery on a computer is nothing new: Click an object in the right software with your mouse or keyboard and you can manipulate it accordingly. But what if you could move that object without ever touching a thing, based only upon your physical location?

That seems to be the trick that Apple has up its sleeve, allowing the perspective of a 3D object to be based upon the users’ relative position. Your position could be detected through a number of different methods including video or infrared, although MacRumors notes that a video camera mounted atop the monitor is the most likely (especially considering they’re built into current laptops from Apple).

The idea is the user can move their head left or right to peek around a 3D object as shown in the example image here. Apple doesn’t stop there, however, suggesting that the technology could also be applied to 2D objects such as windows in an effort to provide depth to traditionally flat objects.

Apple’s patent goes further, hinting that it could incorporate elements of the user’s environment into the scene on the display: “For example, the electronic device may define visual properties of different surfaces of the displayed object (e.g., reflection and refraction characteristics), and apply the visual properties to the portions of the detected image mapped on each surface. Using this approach, surfaces with low reflectivity (e.g., plastic surfaces) may not reflect the environment, but may reflect light, while surfaces with high reflectivity (e.g., polished metal or chrome) may reflect both the environment (e.g., the user's face as detected by the camera) and light. To further enhance the user's experience, the detected environment may be reflected differently along curved surfaces of a displayed object (e.g., as if the user were actually moving around the displayed object and seeing his reflection based on his position and the portion of the object reflecting the image).”

As far back as 1995, Apple has been researching such displays in their labs, using what they refer to as “Hyper Reality” technology.