Three-dimensional reflection screens fabricated by holographic wavefront printer

Abstract

Several wavefront printers have been recently proposed. Since the printers can record an arbitrary computer-generated wavefront, they are expected to be useful for fabricating complex mirror arrays used in front projection 3-D screens without using real existing optics. We prototyped two transparent reflective screens using our hologram printer in experiments. These screens could compensate fora spherically distorted reference wave caused by a short projection distance to obtain an ideal reference wave. Owing to the use of the wavefront-printed screen, the 3-D display was simply composed of a normal 2-D projector and a screen without using extra optics. In our binocular system, reflected light rays converged to the left and right eyes of the observer and the crosstalk was less than 8%. In the light field system, the reflected light rays formed a spatially sampled light field and focused a virtual object in a depth range of +/- 30 mm with a +/- 13.5-deg viewing angle. By developing wavefront printing technology, a complex optics array may easily be printed by nonprofessionals for optics manufacturing. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.