The term “holographic display” has been coopted by marketing organizations and applied to devices that are not true holographic displays. But there are some companies that are developing real holographic displays – and VividQ is one of them. Their new white paper provides some nice background on what real holographic display consists of and how their technology can be applied to Augmented Reality applications.

Classical holographic still or animated images using film or embossed surfaces have been possible for years, but a holographic display system that can run at video rates has been tough to develop. Anyone who has seen a true holographic display realizes that the image offers a very natural 3D viewing experience with no conflict between vergence and accommodation, which is the main cause of discomfort with stereoscopic and many other 3D displays. Real holographic display solutions typically use a spatial light modulator (a customized Liquid-Crystal-on-Silicon chip) with laser or narrow-band LED illumination. An image is not written to the spatial light modulator but rather, a diffraction pattern (computer-generated hologram). Generating a diffraction pattern at video rates with reasonable processing power has been a big challenge – but one the VividQ appears to have overcome.

The white paper provides a lot more details on all these elements and illustrates their advantage for use in AR systems. Please register below to access this informative white paper.

Chris Chinnock, Insight Media

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