Holographic Display System

Copyright © 2009 William H. Mook, Jr.

All Rights Reserved

Fisheye Lens

Pixel Sub Array

Sub-Pixel

Seven Pixel Display

200 Phase Elements Per Pixel

The MOK holographic display system consists of an array of pixels that contains within
each pixel a ʻSUB-PIXEL-ARRAYʼ of ʻSUB-PIXELSʼ combined with a fish-eye lens to
project the ʻSUB-IMAGEʼ WITHIN EACH ʻHOLOGRAPHIC PIXELʼ across the field of
view supported by the display.

The sub-pixel within each sub-image consists of a laser beam or any other optical
source with a small divergence angle. This is diffraction limited. In this way, the fisheye
lens on each pixel associates each sub-pixel within that pixel with a specific orientation.
For simplicity of construction each sub-pixel-array consists of a single color. Full color
images are constructed in the usual way by mixing holographic pixels on a single
display.

The way the display operates is that a 3D data set of all surfaces in a scene is put into
memory. That data set is interrogated from a point of view each holographic pixel
represents on the display in a manner similar to conventional ray tracing. The resulting
2D picture from that point of view is displayed on the sub-pixels within the sub-pixel-
array associated with that holographic pixel. In this way the display operates as a
looking glass through which the scene is displayed without any further special gear.
Each viewer sees an image from their own perspective in three dimensions, and as
viewers move around the display, they see different aspects of the image being
displayed.
Copyright © 2009 William H. Mook, Jr.
All Rights Reserved
 Physics of the Display
A hologram interferes two coherent wave
fronts to create an interference pattern in a
photographic plate. One beam illuminates the
plate directly, the other beam bounces off an Creating a Hologram
object that then arrives at the plate.

Once developed the interference pattern

becomes a diffraction pattern that when
illuminated by the same coherent source,
reconstructs the wavefronts that produced the
hologramʼs interference pattern initially.

The photographic plate then becomes a

source of light rays that create a virtual three-
dimensional image of the object that was
recorded initially.

In the limit, each point on the photographic Viewing a Hologram

plate records an array of light rays that
reconstruct a two-dimensional image of the
scene from that particular point in the plate.
Any method of creating an array of well-
collimated rays from each pixel in a scene that
reproduces the scene from that pixelʼs
perspectives therefore, is a method that
recreates the scene with the same
holographic effects including stereopsis.

Using 750 nm wavelength light as

representative, and determining pixel size we
can determine the number of elements rays
that may be supported from each pixel in a
typical HDTV screen using the Rayleigh
Criterion for Light
greatest possible angular resolution is 1.45ʼ
arc.

Noting the parameters for a full HDTV 1080 Assuming a 120o field of view for each pixel,
format consists of we can at most divide each pixel into 50 sub-
pixels, creating a 50x50 sub-pixel sub-array
1080i HDTV Format within each pixel, producing 2.386o wide
beam from each sub-pixel.
w h p form rate
1920 1080 2.1 M 16:9 60 Hz With an interocular distance of 56 mm
autostereopsis is possible at any location up
We can see that a 96 inch screen has a 1.1 to 1.35 meters (4.4 ft) away from the screen
mm pixel. This is D in the Rayleigh equation with fall off of the effect beyond that distance
and the wavelength is 750 nm, so the angular for a screen of this size. Larger screens have
resolution possible from each pixel is 2.86ʼ larger viewing depths (and larger numbers of
arc. At the shortest wavelength, 380 nm, sub-pixels).

Copyright © 2009 William H. Mook, Jr.

All Rights Reserved
 Physics of IMAX Display
The largest IMAX screen was at Expo ʼ74 in
Seattle Washington, and it measured 90
meters by 65 meters in area. This achieves a
pixel size of 31.69 mm (1.25 inch!)
IMAX Theater
IMAX Format
w h p form rate
2840 2371 6.8 M 10:7 24 Hz

Applying the Rayleigh Criterion to this pixel

size obtains an optimal sub-pixel array that is
280 x 280 elements (78,400) with an angular
resolution of 0.4466o.

Using the same 56 mm interocular distance

allows autostereopsis up to 7.18 m or 23.6
feet from the screen before fall-off of the NHK UHDV
stereoptic effect. This readily fits the IMAX
auditorium which has a shallow depth.

This exceeds the higher bandwidth

requirements of XHD formats now being
considered, which have a maximum resolution
of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels (4.1 M) However NHK
is currently experimenting with UHDTV with
7680 x 4320 pixels (33.2 M) which is 16x
greater than traditional HDTV.
Compression Technique
Yet the requirement to have an additional
Parallax
78.4k sub-pixels per pixel increases the pixel
count for our IMAX theater to 533.1 G - a half
a trillion pixels that must be refreshed 24 times
per second - requiring 24 THz signal, and 12
Tbits per second of recording.

viewpoints. So, the process of compression

is;
Obviously, compression would be useful here.
1) Record two images simultaneously with two
separate cameras separated by a baseline
Compressing 3D images is achieved through to reproduce the effects of human vision;
a rather simple process. Stereopsis is based
on triangulation due to parallax between two

Copyright © 2009 William H. Mook, Jr.

All Rights Reserved
2) Subtract one image from the other and
record one image and the difference
obtained. This is how images are recorded,
played back, and transmitted over live
channels using reasonable bandwidths.

3) In the display add the difference to the

image again to reproduce the second
image

4) Process the two images to build a 3D map

of the image in a computer memory
Digital Compression
5) Interrogate the map using ray-tracing from
each of the pixels supported by the display
to construct a 78.2k sub-array image
unique for each of the pixels

6) Calculate the differences between each of

the adjoining sub-arrays and transmit only
the differences.
7) A processor dedicated to each pixel or
range of pixels carries out these
computations in parallel using the signal
produced in (2) above.
In this way, only 1.5x the bandwidth of a 2D
image is required to store a full holographic
image of the same resolution image.
A data stream of 734.4 Mbytes/sec is sufficient
to stream Holographic IMAX images in this
way (HIMAX©) This speed is easily
supported by two 64 bit Wishbone buses
operating in parallel. At this data rate a 20
minute IMAX film requires 881.3 Gbytes
storage. An 80 minute ʻfeature-lengthʼ film
requires four Terabyte discs, costing less than
$1,000.
A SoC driving 256 pixels (16x16) each with
78.4k (280 x 280) sub-pixels, requires 26,303
processors. Produced at a cost of $100 each,
this puts the display cost of $2.6 million for
processors. This is 1/3 the cost of the original
Large Scale display in Seattle. Each display
element measures 20 inches by 20 inches
(508 x 508 mm) (A smaller screen similar to
that of the IMAX screen in New South Wales
Shared Bus
would consist of elements that measure only
10 inches x 10 inches) With a budget of $200
per display element it appears that such a
display may be possible.
Power
IMAX projectors use a 15,000 watt Xenon
short-arc lamp. This delivers 2.2 milli-watts
per pixel. In the proposed setup this means
0.57 watts per display element and 28 nano-
watts per sub-pixel to match the intensity of
the IMAX projectors. Exceeding these
minimums produces images brighter than
possible with a 15kW lamp. Without any
shutters, artifacts and strobing are minimized.
An experimental system is likely possible at a
cost of $20 million or less, which includes the
production of special cameras, display, and
theater.
The Seattle Expo ʼ74 display was shown to 5
million viewers during its 12 months of
operation. At $5 per viewer, a custom $20
million HIMAX© theater would provide a 100%
ROI obtaining a comparable rate. This system
built in Las Vegas or Abu Dhabi, Paris or New
York should be profitable.

Copyright © 2009 William H. Mook, Jr.

All Rights Reserved