A Novel Three-Dimensional Visual System

The world around us is three dimensional (3D), yet most existing cameras and display systems handle only two dimensional (2D) flat images that lack the depth information. This fundamental restriction greatly limits the capability of human being in perceiving and understanding the complexity of real world objects. The primary objectives of this proposed Phase I SBIR work are two- folds: (1) to study the feasibility and to build a prototype of a novel 3D volumetric display monitor; (2) to establish a framework of the True 3D Visual System (T3DVS), that integrates a real-time 3D imaging device (3D camera), a volumetric 3D display and the interface. Our ultimate goal of the T3DVS system effort is to develop an complete 3D visual system that is able to capture continuously 3D images of physical objects in the scene at a standard video rate of 30 frame per second (fps) and display the captured 3D images immediately on the 3D display monitor. The proposed 3D display approach is a simple and elegant mechanism to obtain 3D display capability without using any moving parts and or viewing glasses. Besides no moving parts and high voxel bandwidth, additional advantages of the proposed 3D display approach are large angle of view, simultaneous multiple user views, large viewing volumes, flexibility in voxel size and shape, and inherent parallel scanning architecture. Under separate efforts, both 3D camera and 3D display technologies have received considerable attention in recent years. However, many current available 3D display techniques have had shortcomings precluding them from being pervasive in mainstream applications. Moreover, there is no systematic effort to date anywhere in the world to integrate a 3D camera with a volumetric 3D display monitor to provide an integrated 3D Camera/Display system. Herein proposed SBIR program will address the important issues related to this novel and unprecedented effort.