Thanks to at least two research efforts around the world, glasses-free 3D might finally be upon us. 3D-TV was something of a flash in the pan, and while 3D movies continue to be made in order to inflate ticket prices, the format's not going anywhere any time soon.

The biggest headache associated with it (apart from actual headaches) is that the glasses that cut out up to 30 per cent of the light from the screen, impose a new manufacturing cost, and probably end up in landfill.

A joint venture by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science is developing a system that works similar to 3D-TV technology. The 3D effect is achieved by a series of tiny slits in the screen – the parallax barrier – that let different images travel in different directions.

In the cinema you can encode multiple parallax barriers to target each seat in the cinema, where the polarisation of the glasses selectively lets a separate image through to each eye. It's much easier than the living room where we might move around or sit any distance away.

Meanwhile, Austria's TriLite Technologies has an even more novel approach, sending the two images that comprise a 3D picture directly to your eyes. After prototyping for five years, the company expects to bring their system to the world soon.

In Trilite's system the screen itself is the projector, just like the LED pixels of a modern TV screen, rather that a passive surface that's projected onto like a movie screen.

It uses technology the company calls "trixels", projecting units with red, green and blue LEDs through microscopic scanning mirrors that can steer the light beams in a particular direction.

The result is that you can project different images in different directions, sending the left and right eye representations of an image directly to the left or right eyes of the viewer.

In fact, the modularity of the system means you can project a completely different scene to someone standing just a few metres away. While you're watching a football game, the person next to might be watching a coffee ad – both of them in full, glasses-less 3D.

Like LED TV screens, you can build a whole billboard out of multiple screens and the system will process the entire image across them in concert. The 3D effect works up to a distance of about 70 metres, after which is reverts to 2D.

Benjamin Bourinat of New York advertising and marketing agency Kinetic Worldwide says "mixed-reality" products, such as Microsoft's Holo-lens, augmented and virtual reality are going to be a big part of the toolkit of major advertisers in the near future, and 3D that doesn't need a cumbersome viewing system will piggyback many of those technologies. He predicts the new 3D tech will be mainstream in the US within a year.

While it's still fairly experimental, Bourinat's clients have changed their tune about VR since two years ago when nobody knew what to do with it, and he thinks holographic marketing (which will need also need glasses-free 3D technology) will be mainstream in the US within a year.

In Australia, the tech is taking even smaller steps. Ogilvy Australia creative director of technology Michael Ford calls investment by the company's clients into AR and VR "tiny, but enthusiastic".

He says 360 video has seen some uptake because platforms like mobile, Facebook and YouTube allow for it, but if a creative idea can effectively use VR to meet strategic goals there is potential for "a large chunk" of the campaign budget being put behind it.