This morning Planar announced the new Planar LookThru OLED transparent display, based on a prototype display first shown at ISE 2015 (and which earned a rAVe Best of ISE 2015 award for Best Overall New Product). The product will first be available in one size, a 55″ 1080p display, and available with and without touch technology.

The Planar LookThru OLED transparent display allows users to view video content, digital images and text on a virtually frameless glass display while enabling designers to overlay this content onto real objects or scenes that sit behind the glass. Planar has previously manufactured transparent LCD displays, but moving to OLED display technology signifies a significant advancement. Since OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) is self-emissive, the displays do not require a backlight the way LCD panels do. This means that an OLED transparent display offers better picture quality, higher contrast and wider viewing angles, in addition to essentially being “more transparent” — Planar says this new OLED display offers 45 percent light transmissivity, compared to transparent LCD displays that typically offer 5 to 17 percent light transmissivity.

The display, which offers a five-millimeter bezel on the top and sides (there’s a three inch bezel at the bottom where the electronics are housed), can be tiled into a video wall — you could stack two displays on top of each other by turning the top display upside down and theoretically go as many displays wide as you wanted using off-board electronics. It can also be used in portrait or landscape mode, and is available as a table-top display, in a ceiling-mounted configuration or flush-mounted on a wall.

The display offers Planar’s Extended Ruggedness and Optics, which uses damage-resistant and optically-clear Corning Gorilla Glass bonded to the front surface of the display — particularly useful in museum or retail applications using touch technology where a display may be touched by thousands of fingers.

The LookThru is available with optional touch technology, available with 32-point simultaneous touch points.

Planar is now accepting pre-orders for the LookThru Transparent OLED Display. MSRP will start just under $15,000 for a display without touch added. It is expected to begin shipping in February 2016. More information is available on the display here. Here’s a video from Planar about the display:

Planar LookThru OLED Transparent Display from Planar Systems on Vimeo.

Here’s a rAVe video from ISE 2015 of the prototype transparent OLED in action (not the final LookThru product, but an early iteration of it):