Stereo imaging quality evaluation in a full-color three-dimensional display system

Abstract

To evaluate the light field display system with a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a holographic functional screen (HFS), the voxel theory based on the ray tracing is used. By analyzing the voxels defined by the cases of corresponding pixels overlapping completely and partially in the image space, the resolution characteristics of the system are discussed. The theoretical model is verified in the reconstruction experiment of a resolution target and compared with the calculation result of the presented system. Finally, we give an optimization method for the display image quality.Due to the important potential applications, a considerable number of three-dimensional (3D) display methods have been presented in recent years [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] . A real-time, large-size, full-color 3D light field display system with the holographic functional screen (HFS) and the projector array was demonstrated in our laboratory [5,6] . However, complex control equipment and large space for projection are required. Given that the light field display based on liquid crystal display (LCD) panel can be conveniently controlled and is compact, a light field display system with HFS and LCD is demonstrated [9] . For the purpose of evaluating the display and the reconstruction image, in this paper, the voxel theory based on the ray tracing is used to derive lateral and depth resolutions quantitatively, and their distribution features in image space are discussed. The size and distribution of the 3D voxel in image space are also derived and confirmed by reconstruction experiments.The 3D information can be reconstructed by creating the light field with the relative directions and intensities in the same way as the light originating from a 3D object or scene, which is the basis of our display method. The structure of the system is shown in Fig.1. A 4K LCD panel is used as the display unit to display the elemental images (EIs) which are captured by the camera in different angles. In order to improve the display efficiency, an HFS which has the spatial information parallel modulation capability is applied as the terminal display equipment. For efficiently utilizing the LCD panel to display, the Fresnel lens array is used as the light control unit. By adjusting the content of the LCD panel and modulating the Fresnel lens array, the 3D information from different viewpoints is projected to the common area of the HFS. Finally, the 3D space information is modulated and displayed on the HFS. Fig.1 Schematic diagram of the system structure 20 parallax images are displayed by the LCD, and all the beams from the images with their optical axes converging to a common area are projected onto the HFS at various angles through the Fresnel lens array. The point of the HFS emits multiple light beams with various intensities and colors in different directions in a controlled way, as if they are emitted from the point of the real 3D object at a fixed spatial position [5] . 20 sub-images with the information of the object are projected into the common r...