Large \'Etendue 3D Holographic Display with Content-adaptive Dynamic Fourier Modulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel holographic display method that significantly expands 'etendue' by combining multiple sources and adaptive Fourier modulation, improving image quality and field of view for virtual reality applications.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new 'etendue expansion technique using content-adaptive Fourier modulation and a pupil-aware holography algorithm, overcoming previous limitations in image quality and speed.

Findings

Significant improvement in image quality over baseline methods

Enhanced 'etendue' enabling larger field of view and eyebox

Validated results through simulation and experimental prototype

Abstract

Emerging holographic display technology offers unique capabilities for next-generation virtual reality systems. Current holographic near-eye displays, however, only support a small \'etendue, which results in a direct tradeoff between achievable field of view and eyebox size. \'Etendue expansion has recently been explored, but existing approaches are either fundamentally limited in the image quality that can be achieved or they require extremely high-speed spatial light modulators. We describe a new \'etendue expansion approach that combines multiple coherent sources with content-adaptive amplitude modulation of the hologram spectrum in the Fourier plane. To generate time-multiplexed phase and amplitude patterns for our spatial light modulators, we devise a pupil-aware gradient-descent-based computer-generated holography algorithm that is supervised by a large-baseline target light field. Compared with relevant baseline approaches, our method demonstrates significant improvements in image quality and \'etendue in simulation and with an experimental holographic display prototype.