Full‐parallax autostereoscopic display with scalable lateral resolution using overlaid multiple projection

Abstract— A method to increase the viewing resolution of an autostereoscopic display without increasing the density of microlenses is proposed. Multiple projectors are used for the projection images to be focused and overlaid on a common plane in the air behind the microlens array. The multiple overlaid projection images yield multiple light spots inside the region of each elemental lenslet of the microlens array. This feature provides scalable high‐resolution images by increasing the number of projectors. Based on the proposed method, a prototype display that includes 15 projectors was designed and built. 3‐D images were successfully reproduced on the prototype display with full parallax and a wide viewing angle of 70°.     

A high‐resolution autostereoscopic display system with a wide viewing angle using an LCOS projector array

Abstract— This study develops an autostereoscopic display based on a multiple miniature projector array to provide a scalable solution for a high‐resolution 3‐D display with large viewing freedom. To minimize distortion and dispersion, and to maximize the modulation transfer function (MTF) of the projection image to optimize 3‐D image quality, a dedicated projection lens and an accurate six‐axis adjusting platform for the miniature projector were designed and fabricated. Image‐blending technology based on a lookup table was adopted to combine images from 30 miniature projectors into a seamless single image. The result was a 35‐in. autostereoscopic display with 60 views ata 30° viewing angle, 90° FOV, and large range of viewing distance. The proposed system exhibits very smooth motion parallax when viewers move around in front of it.     

Optical simulation for cross‐talk evaluation and improvement of autostereoscopic 3‐D displays with a projector array

Abstract— Multi‐view spatial‐multiplexed autostereoscopic 3‐D displays normally use a 2‐D image source and divide the pixels to generate perspective images. Due to the reduction in the resolution of each perspective image for a large view number, a super‐high‐resolution 2‐D image source is required to achieve 3‐D image quality close to the standard of natural vision. This paper proposes an approach by tiling multiple projection images with a low magnification ratio from a microdisplay to resolve the resolution issue. Placing a lenticular array in front of the tiled projection image can lead to an autostereoscopic display. Image distortion and cross‐talk issues resulting from the projection lens and pixel structure of the microdisplay have been addressed with proper selection of the active pixel and adequate pixel grouping and masking. Optical simulation has shown that a 37‐in. 12‐view autostereoscopic display with a full‐HD (1920 × 1080) resolution can be achieved with the proposed 3‐D architecture.     

Crosstalk‐free dual‐view integral imaging display

We propose a crosstalk‐free dual‐view integral imaging display. It is composed of a display panel, a barrier array, and a micro‐lens array. The central barrier is located at the vertical central axes of the display panel and the micro‐lens array to split the element image array and the viewing zone. Moreover, other barriers are located at the margins of the elemental images and corresponding micro‐lenses to eliminate the crosstalk. The lights emitting from the left and right half of the element image array are modulated by the left and right half of the micro‐lens array to reconstruct the right and left viewing zones, respectively. A prototype of the proposed dual‐view integral imaging display is developed, and good experimental results agree well with the theory.     

多投影显示墙画面校正技术综述

由投影仪阵列组成的多投影显示墙是目前实现高性能、低成本大型绘制平台的首选解决方案。为了保证多投影显示墙画面的完整性,需要通过一定的方法来预补偿由于投影仪特性差异造成的画面几何扭曲与色彩不均衡。结合实际研究工作,从多投影显示墙存在的问题、几何变换矩阵求取、颜色模型估计和全局颜色校正等几个方面对多投影显示墙画面校正的研究情况进行综述, 讨论了存在的问题和进一步的发展方向。     

An integral‐imaging three‐dimensional display with wide viewing angle

Abstract— The viewing angle and flipping areas of a conventional integral‐imaging three‐dimensional (3‐D) display were analyzed. The pitches of the elemental image and micro‐lens are identical. The more micro‐lenses used, the smaller the viewing angle becomes and the wider the flipping areas become. In this paper, an improved integral‐imaging 3‐D display is presented. The pitch of the elemental image is larger than that of the micro‐lens. The single‐viewing angles of all micro‐lenses converge and there are no flipping areas at the optimal viewing distance. Computational reconstructions of improved and conventional integral imaging were carried out, and experimental results demonstrate that improved integral‐imaging 3‐D displays have a wider viewing angle than the conventional ones and do not have flipping areas at the optimal viewing distance.     

Moiré‐reduction methods for integral videography autostereoscopic display with color‐filter LCD

Abstract— Moiré‐reduction methods for integral videography displays are proposed. Integral videography is based on the principles of integral photography and extended real‐time video processing. There are two moiré‐reduction methods that can be used for integral videography displays that have a lens array and a liquid‐crystal display. The first is color moiré, and the second is intensity moiré. To reduce color moiré, an optimized color‐filter layout in the liquid‐crystal display was used. To reduce intensity moiré, a defocusing method was used. Adesign of a viewing area for the integral videography display is also presented. To control the viewing area, the lens pitch and the shape of the integral videography elemental image was changed. A 5‐in. integral videography display was implemented by using the proposed methods, and an integral videography display was evaluated.     

Time‐multiplexed tiled projection system with improved pixel and spatial resolution

We propose two methods to increase the pixel and spatial resolution of Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD)‐based projectors by utilizing the large bandwidth provided by their high pattern rates. By varying the intensity of the illumination for each binary pattern displayed on the DMD, the time required to display an 8‐bit grayscale image can be reduced by up to factor 32 compared to using constant illumination and binary pulse‐width modulation (BPWM). The high image rate projection is then spatially separated by either using a galvanometer scanner or sequentially illuminating the DMD from different directions, thus creating multiple independently addressable projections which are then tiled to form a larger, higher resolution image.     

Viewing angle enhanced integral imaging display based on double‐micro‐lens array

A viewing angle enhanced integral imaging display, which consists of a double microlens array, and a display panel is proposed. The double microlens array includes a convex microlens array and a concave microlens array. The display panel is used to display original elemental image array. The convex microlens array, located near the display panel, is used to provide a virtual elemental image array for the concave microlens array. The concave microlens array, located far away from the display panel, is used to display integral images with the virtual elemental image array. Compared with the original elemental image, the pitch for each virtual elemental image is magnified by the corresponding convex microlens. As a result, the viewing angle is expanded. Simulations based on ray‐tracing are performed and the results agree well with the theory.     

A toroidal‐lens designed structure for static type table‐top floating image system with horizontal parallax function

A new structure of horizontal parallax table‐top floating image system with toroidal‐lens optical film was developed. In this design, the circular arranged pico‐projectors limit the angular resolution of this system and display the floating image for surrounding viewing zones. In addition, the pinhole array and toroidal‐lens layer compose the optical film in the system and correspond with each other; both of them could be considered as a repeatable unit to control the spatial resolution of image. After passing through the optical film, the direction, position, shape, and divergence angle of light field could be controlled as fan ray, which has a widely scattered angle in latitude and high directivity in longitude direction. Moreover, to confirm the optical properties, the proposed structure was built in the commercially optical software, LightTools v8.3, which is widely used in the simulation of light distribution. Based on the imaging principle and the inverse light tracking method, displaying floating image with circular viewing zones would be achieved.     

Depth‐enhanced integral‐imaging 3D display using different optical path lengths by polarization devices or mirror barrier array

Abstract— Depth‐enhanced integral three‐dimensional (3D) imaging using different optical path lengths by using a polarization selective mirror pair or mirror barrier array is proposed. In the proposed approach, the enhancement of image depth is achieved by repositioning two types of elemental image planes, thus effectively two central depth planes are obtained. One of the two implementation methods makes use of the two‐arm structure that has different optical path lengths and polarization‐selective mirrors. The other utilizes the mirror barrier array. The primary advantage of the method with polarization devices is that we can observe 3D images that maintain some level of viewing resolution with a large depth difference without any mechanical moving part. The mirror barrier array has the advantage of the compact thickness. We demonstrated and verified our proposals experimentally.     

Seamless ultrathin rear projection display

A new architecture for a thin (2‐cm depth) rear projection display is described. In order to achieve this small depth, a very high density of rear projectors is used. Three prototype displays using rear projectors on both 5‐ and 2‐cm pitch arrays are described. The displays can achieve an effective screen pixel pitch of as small as 0.5 mm, which makes this technology competitive in terms of resolution with fine pitch LED displays; however, orders of magnitude fewer LEDs are required: Each rear projector requires only one white LED and a color liquid crystal light modulator. In the three prototypes, the projector light modulators utilize 101‐cm (40 in.), 80‐cm (31.5 in.), and 60‐cm (24 in.) diagonal liquid crystal display glass. To minimize cost, no lenses are utilized for the rear projectors. An RGB LED array may augment the projector array, which provides a low resolution component of the image onto which the high resolution component is superimposed by the projector array. Edge gaps between active areas on adjacent LCD glass units are completely eliminated by the rear projection approach enabling low profile wall‐size seamless displays. Display contrast depends on rear projection screen design.     

A polarization modulated directional backlight autostereoscopic display

A polarization modulated directional backlight autostereoscopic display is proposed and demonstrated. The system consists of the orthogonally polarized backlight, the Fresnel lens array, a light shaping diffuser film, and a liquid crystal display (LCD) with a microphase retardation film. The autostereoscopic image pair carried by the directional light with different polarization directions is simultaneously projected to different spatial directions. The simulation and experimental results show that the directional projection of parallax images is realized for a high-quality autostereoscopic display with large viewing angle and continuous viewing volume, hence making it suitable for practical applications.     

Resolution enhancement of integral‐imaging three‐dimensional display using directional elemental image projection

Abstract— A new approach to resolution enhancement of an integral‐imaging (II) three‐dimensional display using multi‐directional elemental images is proposed. The proposed method uses a special lens made up of nine pieces of a single Fresnel lens which are collected from different parts of the same lens. This composite lens is placed in front of the lens array such that it generates nine sets of directional elemental images to the lens array. These elemental images are overlapped on the lens array and produce nine point light sources per each elemental lens at different positions in the focal plane of the lens array. Nine sets of elemental images are projected by a high‐speed digital micromirror device and are tilted by a two‐dimensional scanning mirror system, maintaining the time‐multiplexing sequence for nine pieces of the composite lens. In this method, the concentration of the point light sources in the focal plane of the lens array is nine‐times higher, i.e., the distance between two adjacent point light sources is three times smaller than that for a conventional II display; hence, the resolution of three‐dimensional image is enhanced.     

GPU Accelerated Direct Volume Rendering on an Interactive Light Field Display

We present a GPU accelerated volume ray casting system interactively driving a multi‐user light field display. The display, driven by a single programmable GPU, is based on a specially arranged array of projectors and a holographic screen and provides full horizontal parallax. The characteristics of the display are exploited to develop a specialized volume rendering technique able to provide multiple freely moving naked‐eye viewers the illusion of seeing and manipulating virtual volumetric objects floating in the display workspace. In our approach, a GPU ray‐caster follows rays generated by a multiple‐center‐of‐projection technique while sampling pre‐filtered versions of the dataset at resolutions that match the varying spatial accuracy of the display. The method achieves interactive performance and provides rapid visual understanding of complex volumetric data sets even when using depth oblivious compositing techniques.     

A high optical efficiency 3D/2D convertible integral imaging display

We propose a high optical efficiency three‐dimensional (3D)/two‐dimensional (2D) convertible integral imaging display by using a pinhole array on a reflective polarizer. The 3D mode is realized by adopting a pinhole array on a reflective polarizer to generate a point light source array. Three‐dimensional/2D convertible feature is realized by electrically controlling a polarization switcher. The reflective polarizer can reflect the light that has the orthogonal polarization direction with the reflective polarizer and transmit the light that has the same polarization direction with the reflective polarizer. The reflected light is recycled, so the optical efficiencies for both 3D and 2D modes are enhanced. In the practical experiments, the optical efficiencies of the proposed integral imaging display increase by 8.04 times and 1.65 times in 3D and 2D modes comparing with the conventional integral imaging display that has no light recycle, respectively.     

面向球幕投影系统的几何校正方法

摘 要：用于飞行模拟的视景仿真系统，经常会以多台投影仪同步投影以得到较大范围的 视场角。当投影机斜对屏幕或者投影屏幕为曲面时，图像会发生几何失真。针对此问题，本文 提出了一种专门面向球幕投影系统的几何校正方法，并以一个三通道显示系统为实例，详述了 该方法的理论原理以及校正流程。实例结果表明，经几何校正后，各投影图像无几何畸变，通 道过渡处几何内容完全一致。该方法是一种纯软件方法，成本小而且操作简单，能够适应于不 同的投影场景。     

Tabletop integral imaging 3D display system based on annular point light source

When the viewers sitting around the table observe 3D images, the viewing direction is generally oblique and the viewpoints should be distributed as annular. In this paper, a tabletop integral imaging (II) three-dimensional (3D) display system based on annular point light sources is demonstrated, which can present 3D images to multiple viewers in a standard annular viewing area with oblique viewing direction. The proposed system consists of annular point light sources, a Fresnel lens, a lens array, a two-dimensional (2D) display panel, and a diffuser screen. Each point light source illuminates the Fresnel lens to form parallel light and then illuminates the lens array and the display panel. A viewing sub-area is generated at the position of the diffuser screen, in which the 3D images can be viewed. Multiple viewing sub-areas are created in a way of time-division multiplexing to form a 360° annular viewing area. Compared with the previous tabletop 3D display, the viewing area can be concentrated at an oblique angle near the tabletop. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the tabletop II 3D display system.     

Development of a parameterization image stitching algorithm for ultrashort throw laser MEMS projectors

We present a novel design of a parameterization image stitching algorithm for ultrashort throw laser MEMS projectors. The resultant method allows the use of projectors with short or even long throw ratios to achieve ultrashort throw projection through a parameterized algorithm to stitch multiple images into one single frame, alleviating the trade‐off between the resolution and frame rate in conventional laser MEMS displays. To evaluate the effectiveness, we construct a test system that consists of three off‐the‐shelf projectors with a throw ratio of 1.3 and three planar reflective mirrors. Using our method, the integrated system yields an ultrashort throw ratio of 0.26, greatly reducing the projection distance from 12 to 2.6 ft for the 120‐in. screen in diagonal. Moreover, our algorithm can be fine‐tuned to correct for image distortion, intensity variation, and edge mismatch induced by two‐axis light beam steering, thereby further improving the image quality.     

A high‐contrast front‐projection display system optimizing the projected light‐angle range

Abstract— The problem with front‐projection displays is that the screen contrast ratio decreases under bright‐ambient conditions. To overcome this problem, the design of a special screen, composed of the diffuser whose diffusing property shows top‐hat characteristics and a sawtooth reflector, is proposed. The screen diffuses the incident image light arriving at a projection‐angle range that is a lower‐angle range than the viewing‐angle range, and reflects the ambient light out of the viewing‐angle range. In this paper, the projection‐angle range and the viewing‐angle range was optimized to improve the contrast ratio of a front‐projection display. As a result, a special screen with the above‐mentioned diffusing property was realized, and a high‐quality front‐projection display with a high contrast ratio, even in a bright room, was achieved.