A Holographic and Light-field Processor for Extreme Multi-View Displays

‘Extreme multiview’ lightfield displays (FoLDs) are needed to enhance the warfighter's ability to operate in today’s information filled battlefield, while giving the warfighter the needed information to quickly assess the battlespace thereby making faster, more informed decisions. Many of the critical component technologies of FoLDs (high pixel density microdisplays and holographic element (hogel) arrays) have recently become available in early prototypes, but these technologies are still not practical solutions. Likewise, the inability of today’s graphics rendering technologies to process extreme multiview lightfield images in real-time is a critical hurdle to the deployment of FoLD systems. Using conventional rendering techniques, the number of render passes needed to generate the radiance images is on the order of the number of hogels in the FoLD. This limitation dramatically increases the system complexity, size, weight, power and cost and burden on the display’s software application. To solve the rendering problem, Holochip invented a new paradigm of lightfield processor, i.e., the method by which the lightfield radiance image is computed. To solve the FoLD problem, Holochip developed a novel extreme multiview 3D display based on novel low-cost hogels and the mature SLM technology used in consumer electronics.