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Floating three-dimensional display viewable from 360 degrees

Article in Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering · February 2012
DOI: 10.1117/12.907998

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 Floating three-dimensional display viewable from 360 degrees
Daisuke Miyazaki, Nobuhiro Akasaka, Kenta Okoda, Yuki Maeda, and Takaaki Mukai
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka City University,
3-3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, 558-8585 Japan

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research is to develop a full-parallax auto-stereoscopic display system, which can generate a floating
three-dimensional (3-D) image viewable from a surrounding area. A 3-D display method based on the combination of
integral imaging, 360-degree scanning with a rotating mirror, and imaging in the air with a concave mirror is proposed.
A scanning system is composed of a hemisphere concave mirror and a mirror scanner, which is located around the center
of the concave mirror. By putting an image generated by an integral imaging system into the scanning system, a floating
stereoscopic image can be formed around the center of the concave mirror. When the mirror scanner rotates and the
image on the integral imaging system is switched in accordance with mirror angle, each directional image can be
observed from each viewing angle. The feasibility of the proposed method was examined by preliminary experiments.
The abilities of generation of a floating full-parallax image and a floating auto-stereoscopic image with 360-degree
viewing angle are demonstrated.
Keywords: three-dimensional display, auto-stereoscopic display, floating image, integral imaging, 360-degree view

1. INTRODUCTION
Scalability for viewable angle is an important technical issue to improve utility and applicability of three-dimensional (3-
D) displays. An ordinary stereoscopic image without motion parallax is distorted when a viewer changes a viewing
position. Although a multi-view auto-stereoscopic display, which has motion parallax, can avoid this unnatural
distortion, the viewing zone is restricted depending on the number of views. Three-dimensional display with
surrounding viewing area is one of promising technology to create a new visual interface system. A display with
surrounding viewing area can give realistic feeling to a reconstructed 3-D object, because the back side of the object can
be seen by going around. Very large viewing angle is useful for multiple viewers at a meeting or for cooperative work.
Recently several display techniques with surrounding viewing zone have been developed, for example volumetric
displays with a rotating screen [1,2], cylindrical parallax barrier displays [3], and 360-degree scanning displays with a
rotating directional diffuser [4,5].
In addition, floating image formation in the air is effective to gain accessibility to a 3-D image using a 3-D pointing
device [6]. Several display systems based on a multi-projection technique [7] and an integral imaging technique using
holographic optical elements [8], which can generate an image viewed from surrounding area are proposed. However,
these methods realize horizontal parallax only.
We are developing a 3-D display technique, which can form a floating full-parallax 3-D image viewable from the
surrounding area. We propose a new technique based on the combination of integral imaging, 360-degree scanning with
a rotating mirror, and imaging in the air with a concave mirror. The feasibility of the proposed method is examined by
preliminary experiments.

2. PRINCIPLE OF FLOATING 3-D DISPLAY VIEWABLE FROM 360 DEGREES

An optical system of the proposed 3-D display method is composed of an integral imaging system, a relay system and a
scanning system as shown in figure 1. Integral imaging is typically implemented by the combination of a two-
dimensional (2-D) display device and a 2-D lens array, which can generate many directional images.

*[email protected]; phone +81-6-6605-2877; fax +81-6-6605-2877; picasso.elec.eng.osaka-cu.ca.jp

Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXIII, edited by Andrew J. Woods, Nicolas S. Holliman,
Gregg E. Favalora, Proc. of SPIE-IS&T Electronic Imaging, SPIE Vol. 8288, 82881H
© 2012 SPIE-IS&T · CCC code: 0277-786X/12/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.907998

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 A scanning system is composed of a hemisphere concave mirror and a plane mirror scanner, which is located around the
center of the concave mirror. The scanning system forms a real image, which can be observed from surrounding area,
using a hemisphere concave mirror. An image transferred from the integral imaging system through the relay system is
focused around the plane mirror in the scanning system. Reflected light at the plane mirror is deflected to the concave
mirror, reflected by the concave mirror, and focused again around the center of the concave mirror to form a real image.
This real image is floating in the air without a screen, and viewed stereoscopically on the basis of integral imaging.
When the inclined plane mirror rotates horizontally, the position of the real image is not change very much, but the
direction of the face of the image and the direction of light propagation is horizontally changed. While the plane mirror
spins, images in the integral imaging system are rapidly switched in accordance with the mirror angle, so that a
corresponding directional image can be observed from each viewing angle. Consequently, tt is possible to form an auto-
stereoscopic image, which can be observed from the surrounding area. Horizontal parallax is achieved by the
combination of integral imaging using the lens array and horizontal scanning using the spinning plane mirror. Vertical
parallax is also achieved on the basis of the integral imaging.
It is difficult to obtain high image resolution by ordinary integral imaging systems, because of the fundamental tradeoff
between a spatial resolution and an angular resolution [9]. The scanning with the spinning mirror causes rotary movement
of the floating image. This movement of an image can be used with time-multiplexing to improve the spatial resolution
by interpolating between pixels.

2-D display
Integral imaging
system
Lens array

Relay system

Scanning
system
Rotating mirror
scanner

Concave mirror

Figure 1. Floating 3-D display with surrounding viewing area using a hemisphere concave mirror and a mirror scanner.

3. EXPERIMENTS
We constructed three experimental systems to verify the proposed technique. First system was constructed to verify
floating 3D image formation based on integral imaging without angular scanning with the spinning plane mirror. In the
second system, we formed a 360-degree viewable image using the optical scanning system without integral imaging. In
addition, we tried to form a full-parallax 360-degree viewable image using the angular scanner with the spinning mirror
and integral imaging with the lens array.
3.1 Floating auto-stereoscopic imaging without scanning
Figure 2 shows the experimental display system to form a floating auto-stereoscopic image. The integral imaging system
consists of a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a lens array. An integral image is transferred to a scanning system through
a relay system consisting of two convex lenses, whose diameter and focal length is 152 mm and 248.5 mm. The relay

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 system controls the direction of principal rays from a real image to concentrate light to a viewing area in the vertical
directions by setting the lens position properly. The scanning system is composed of a hemisphere concave mirror,
whose diameter and focal length is 350 mm and 175 mm, and an inclined plane mirror. In this experiment, the plane
mirror was fixed at an angular position. The light is focused again by the concave mirror and forms an auto-stereoscopic
image in the air around the center of the concave mirror.
An elemental image for each lens in the lens array was obtained by rearranging rendered images of a 3-D object viewed
from the angles in accord with the directions determined by the relation of the positions between the pixels in each
elemental image and each elemental lens. Figure 3 shows pictures of a floating stereoscopic image generated by the
experimental 3-D display system taken from different directions. We observed full-parallax stereoscopic sensation for
the floating image. Viewing angle was restricted within 15 degrees because of the numerical aperture of the relay system.
The observed images were distorted due to optical aberrations. The relay system, which is installed above the scanning
system, interferes with view of the constructed 3-D image.

Liquid crystal display

Lens array

Relay system

Mirror
scanner

Concave mirror

Figure 2. Experimental system to form a real image of auto-stereoscopic image

Figure 3. Picture of floating auto-stereoscopic image generated by the experimental system. Slightly different images were
acquired by taking the pictures from different positions because of parallax.

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 Table 1. Specifications of experimental system for auto-stereoscopic floating image formation
Resolution of LCD [ppi] 96
Number of lenses 36 × 42
Pixel number in elemental image 52
Horizontal viewable angle [degree] ±15
Vertical viewable angle [degree] ±15

3.2 Floating image display with surrounding viewing zone

In the second experiment, the mirror scanner was rotated, but we didn't use the lens array in the integral imaging system.
Figure 4 shows the experimental system to verify floating image formation with a surrounding viewing zone. The
difference of the structure from the previous experiment is that an image enters into the scanning system from the bottom
of the concave mirror to prevent the relay system obstructing observation of an image. This structure allows the relay
system to be placed closer to the mirror scanner. Consequently, this structure is advantageous to use of a relay system
with a higher numerical aperture. The specifications of the optical elements are same as the previous experimental
system.
We used a digital micro-mirror device (DMD), Discovery1100 made by Texas Instrument Inc., which has high frame
rate of 8000 Hz to switch images rapidly [10]. The plane mirror in the scanning system was rotated at a 20 Hz rotational
frequency using a pulse motor controlled by a computer. While the plane mirror spun, the DMD displayed 400 images
sequentially within one rotation of the mirror. These 400 images were obtained by rendering a 3D CG object in accord
with views from the surrounding area at every 0.9 degrees. Table 2 shows system specifications.
We observed a floating image from the surrounding viewing area. Figure 5 shows pictures of the floating image taken
from angles different by 90 degrees. These results confirm the availability of the proposed method for a floating 3-D
display with a surrounding viewing area. The observed images had horizontal parallax only, because integral imaging
was not implemented and horizontal scanning was achieved by horizontal scanning with the spinning plane mirror.
Distortion aberration was observed in the images. It is possible to remove this distortion by distorting images on the
DMD in advance to compensate the 3-D image distortion.

Table 2. Specifications of floating image display with surrounding viewing zone

Resolution of DMD 1024 × 768
Number of image 400
Angular resolution [degree] 0.9
Horizontal viewable angle [degree] 360
Vertical viewable angle [degree] ±17
Rotational frequency [rpm] 1200

3.3 Full-parallax auto-stereoscopic display with 360-degree viewing angle

In the third experiment, we tried to form a full-parallax auto-stereoscopic image with 360-degree viewable angle. The
structure of the experimental system is basically same as the previous 360-degree display system except that a lens array
is placed after the projection screen, and a numerical aperture is increased using additional concave lenses in the relay
system. We calculated elemental images by simulating the optical system on the basis of optical ray tracing as shown in
figure 6.

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 Real
image

Rotating Rotating mirror

mirror
scanner
scanner

Concave
mirror
Concave
mirror

Diffuser
Diffuser

DMD

DMD

(a) (b)
Figure 4. Experimental system of floating image display with surrounding viewing zone

Figure 5. Experimental results of floating image display with surrounding viewing zone. Pictures were taken from view
points differed by viewing angle of 90 degrees.

Although we were able to form a full-parallax auto-stereoscopic image with 360-degree viewing angle by spinning the
plane mirror, the quality of the 3D image was insufficient for verification. This caused by the difference of light rays
between in the actual optical system and in the simulation model used for calculating display patterns in the integral
imaging system, in spite of degradation of image quality is more sensitive in integral imaging than ordinary imaging. It
is required to acquire more accurate ray information in the actual optical system by measuring the correspondence of
each pixel on the DMD to position and angle of light from a 3-D image.

4. CONCLUSIONS
We proposed a new 3-D display method based on the combination of integral imaging, 360-Degree scanning with a
rotating mirror, and imaging in the air with a concave mirror, aiming at floating image generation for full-parallax auto-
stereoscopy, which can be observed from a surrounding area. We examined the feasibility of the proposed method by
preliminary experiments. We demonstrated the generation of a floating full-parallax auto-stereoscopic image and
floating auto-stereoscopic image with 360-degree viewable angle, respectively.

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 Figure 6. Simulated result based on ray tracing of the full-parallax auto-stereoscopic display system with 360-degree
viewable angle.

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