screen idea

Like was mentioned above, you could do it kinda like DLP. Have red, green, blue leds as a backlight. Draw the screen in 1 pass per primary using the pixels(subpixels of the regular screen) as brightness controls. Still get the 3x horizontal resolution without using really fancy hardware.

Unfortunately it also cuts the refresh rate for the full color image.

Yeah okay, so flash change the backlight to soild rgb colours then have the sub pixels in sync to allow the right amount of that colour. In three cycles(one for each colour) you would have a complete picture. Yeah that could be done with alterations to current tech. You would definitely need a 180hrtz screen to get a normal 60hrtz picture and. I don't know if the backlight could keep up with the colour changes. Maybe you could make 1 giant oled backlight, that could cope with the rapid changes.

If you're using RED, GREEN, BLUE led's as a backlight, they would only have to turn on at the beginning of the shade being drawn, and off at the end.

To draw a full color image:

Turn on red backlight led's -> draw pixels
Turn off red, turn on green -> draw pixels
Turn off green, turn on blue -> draw pixels

Led's should be fast enough

Yeah quickly looked into it and LEDs are fast enough, it's the shutter speed on the pixels itself holding it back. Display blur might not be a problem because of low persistence. It's just the hertz that would be the killer. I wonder if you could test it with a gaming monitor. Making a 144 fps video, where you get a single image then split the colours, make that into a 3 fps video bit then duplicate that to a minute. couldn't test the resolution but you would see if there is a rainbow artifact or anything else

I wrote a quick program to draw an image quickly switching between red, green, and blue. On my 60hz monitor, I get a lot of flickering where the image doesn't completely gain "color solidity" and I can see the primaries. But, I can also see the potential of it working at a faster rate. Which rate it is "good enough" I'm not sure of.

Here's a link to the program. Let me know what results you get if any. I've never written a program for other people to run, so who knows.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=B ... file%2czip

You may need this 32bit dll(even if you have 64bit windows) to run it, just pop it in the same dir as the program.
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-f ... runtime140
I don't have a high refresh monitor so I don't get good results

So essentially the mini displays in the headset are like the DLP's used in projectors.

The issue i can see is that rainbow artifacts would be pronounced when focusing over different areas of the screen (even at a high refresh) maybe if its possible to increase the refresh even further, it may be minimised

since thickness is not a problem, the solution would be to have deep pixels, made from RGB led, not side to side, but stacked or like a pyramid , in a pit or a tube. then you would get a pixel that is RGB color and even put microlens on it.
the use of nanotube to create a mask to avoid light leakage between pixel.
i expect 3d printer a very small scale to be able to print such screen very soon.
we will even be able to create colored light from white light using nano diffraction systems that woudl even solve the problem of RGB triplet.