Adaptive, spatially-varying aberration correction for real-time holographic projectors

Waveguide holography for 3D augmented reality glasses

Near-eye displays are fundamental technology in the next generation computing platforms for augmented reality and virtual reality. However, there are remaining challenges to deliver immersive and comfortable visual experiences to users, such as compact form factor, solving vergence-accommodation conflict, and achieving a high resolution with a large eyebox. Here we show a compact holographic near-eye display concept that combines the advantages of waveguide displays and holographic displays to overcome the challenges towards true 3D holographic augmented reality glasses. By modeling the coherent light interactions and propagation via the waveguide combiner, we demonstrate controlling the output wavefront using a spatial light modulator located at the input coupler side. The proposed method enables 3D holographic displays via exit-pupil expanding waveguide combiners, providing a large software-steerable eyebox. It also offers additional advantages such as resolution enhancement capability by suppressing phase discontinuities caused by pupil replication process. We build prototypes to verify the concept with experimental results and conclude the paper with discussion.

Method of color holographic display with speckle noise suppression

In this paper, a method of color holographic display with speckle noise suppression is proposed. Firstly, the intensity information of the object is extracted according to the red, green and blue (RGB) channels. The band-limited phase is calculated and used as the initial phase for each color channel. Secondly, the double-step Fresnel diffraction algorithm is used to calculate the computer-generated holograms (CGHs), and a filter plane that dynamically adjusts the position of the filter in the optical path is designed. Then, a divergent spherical phase factor is added to the CGHs. Finally, the time average method is used to further reduce the speckle noise. When the CGHs of the RGB channels are loaded on the digital micromirror device and illuminated by the RGB lights emitting in a temporal sequence, the color reconstructed images with speckle noise suppression can be displayed. The validity of the proposed method is verified.

Accelerating a spatially varying aberration correction of holographic displays with low-rank approximation

Correction of spatially varying aberrations in holographic displays often requires intractable computational loads. In this Letter, we introduce a low-rank approximation method that decomposes sub-holograms into a small number of modes, thereby reformulating the computer-generated hologram calculation into a summation of a few convolutions. The low-rank approximation is carried out with two different algorithms: the Karhunen-Loeve transform as the optimum solution with respect to the mean-squared error criterion and a novel, to the best of our knowledge, optimization method to provide uniform image quality over the entire field of view. The proposed method is two orders of magnitude faster than the conventional point-wise integration method in our experimental setup, with comparable image quality.

Wide field of view re-configurable foveal projection systems using a phase only spatial light modulator: an application to a new generation of automotive HUDs

This paper shows how a phase only spatial light modulator (SLM) can be used to implement compact, wide field of view (FOV) projection systems, using a foveal imaging approach. The SLM is tested in two different configurations. First, as a wavefront corrector to locally compensate aberrations in wide angle projection, when illuminated by a white (RGB) light source. Second, as re-configurable diffractive optical element (DOE) to display phase computer generated holograms (CGHs) of wide angle images, that include aberration corrections for peripheral regions of interest (ROI) of the output image, when illuminated by a coherent source. Finally, the foveal projection system is coupled with a commercial combiner to project 11° ×4° virtual images at 2~m and assess the foveal correction method on different ROIs in the FOV.

Learning-based compensation of spatially varying aberrations for holographic display [Invited]

We propose a hologram generation technique to compensate for spatially varying aberrations of holographic displays through machine learning. The image quality of the holographic display is severely degraded when there exist optical aberrations due to misalignment of optical elements or off-axis projection. One of the main advantages of holographic display is that aberrations can be compensated for without additional optical elements. Conventionally, computer-generated holograms for compensation are synthesized through a point-wise integration method, which requires large computational loads. Here, we propose to replace the integration with a combination of fast-Fourier-transform-based convolutions and forward computation of a deep neural network. The point-wise integration method took approximately 95.14 s to generate a hologram of 1024×1024pixels, while the proposed method took about 0.13 s, which corresponds to ×732 computation speed improvement. Furthermore, the aberration compensation by the proposed method is verified through experiments.

Imaging biological tissue with high-throughput single-pixel compressive holography

Single-pixel holography (SPH) is capable of generating holographic images with rich spatial information by employing only a single-pixel detector. Thanks to the relatively low dark-noise production, high sensitivity, large bandwidth, and cheap price of single-pixel detectors in comparison to pixel-array detectors, SPH is becoming an attractive imaging modality at wavelengths where pixel-array detectors are not available or prohibitively expensive. In this work, we develop a high-throughput single-pixel compressive holography with a space-bandwidth-time product (SBP-T) of 41,667 pixels/s, realized by enabling phase stepping naturally in time and abandoning the need for phase-encoded illumination. This holographic system is scalable to provide either a large field of view (~83 mm2) or a high resolution (5.80 μm × 4.31 μm). In particular, high-resolution holographic images of biological tissues are presented, exhibiting rich contrast in both amplitude and phase. This work is an important step towards multi-spectrum imaging using a single-pixel detector in biophotonics.

Analysis of potential distortions corresponding to the hologram printed by a holographic wave-front printer

In this paper, potential distortions corresponding to the hologram printed by a holographic wave-front printer are analyzed. Potential distortions are classified as the magnification(demagnification) distortion, barrel distortion, pincushion distortion, SLM mounting distortion, and translation distortion, respectively. These distortions are grouped as the optics distortion, SLM mounting distortion and the translation distortion depending on the process of recording the hologram in the holographic wave-front printer. In order to evaluate each distortion, a distortion analysis method based on a local spatial frequency is proposed. Through the proposed method, a diffracted wavefield reconstructed from a quantitatively distorted hologram is theoretically analyzed, and the validity of this analysis is verified by applying the numerical reconstruction method. In the numerical reconstruction, a propagation of a distorted wavefield reconstructed from the quantitatively distorted hologram is confirmed and contributed to generate the distorted reconstruction plane, such as a focal cloud plane and a convergence plane, depending on the types of distortion.

Vision-correcting holographic display: evaluation of aberration correcting hologram

Vision-correcting displays are key to achieving physical and physiological comforts to the users with refractive errors. Among such displays are holographic displays, which can provide a high-resolution vision-adaptive solution with complex wavefront modulation. However, none of the existing hologram rendering techniques have considered the optical properties of the human eye nor evaluated the significance of vision correction. Here, we introduce vision-correcting holographic display and hologram acquisition that integrates user-dependent prescriptions and a physical model of the optics, enabling the correction of on-axis and off-axis aberrations. Experimental and empirical evaluations of the vision-correcting holographic displays show the competence of holographic corrections over the conventional vision correction solutions.

Single-shot digital multiplexed holography for the measurement of deep shapes

This work develops a single-shot holographic profilometer that enables shape characterization of discontinuous deep surfaces. This is achieved by combining hologram frequency multiplexing and an illumination technique of complex amplitude in multi-incidence angle profilometer. Object illumination is carried out from seven directions simultaneously, where the radial angular coordinates of illumination plane waves obey the geometric series. It is shown that: (i) the illumination pattern provides the required frequency separation of all object wavefronts in transverse frequency space, which is necessary for hologram demultiplexing, and (ii) numerical generation of longitudinal scanning function (LSF) is possible, which has large measurement range, high axial resolution, and small side lobes. Low side lobes of LSF and the developed multiplexed field dependent aberration compensation method are essential to minimize the negative influence of speckle noise of single-shot capture on the measurement result. The utility of the proposed method is demonstrated with experimental measurement of heights of two step-like objects.

Aberration-corrected full-color holographic augmented reality near-eye display using a Pancharatnam-Berry phase lens

We present a full-color holographic augmented reality near-eye display using a Pancharatnam-Berry phase lens (PBP lens) and its aberration correction method. Monochromatic and chromatic aberrations of the PBP lens are corrected by utilizing complex wavefront modulation of the holographic display. A hologram calculation method incorporating the phase profile of the PBP lens is proposed to correct the monochromatic aberration. Moreover, the chromatic aberration is corrected by warping the image using the mapping function obtained from ray tracing. The proposed system is demonstrated with the benchtop prototype, and the experimental results show that the proposed system offers 50° field of view full-color holographic images without optical aberrations.

Fourier single-pixel reconstruction of a complex amplitude optical field

Based on a Fourier single-pixel imaging (SPI) technique and interference between an unknown field and a reference beam, we implement amplitude and phase reconstruction of the unknown complex field. In this Letter, we use a chessboard pattern to divide the unknown field into the signal and reference parts. A high-speed digital micro-mirror device is used to modulate the relative phase between the reference and signal fields, and the SPI method is used to acquire the Fourier spectrum of the signal field. We experimentally reconstruct a 103×103-pixel complex amplitude field with a resolution of 68.4 μm. The single-pixel real-time wavefront detection is also implemented in the rate of four frames per second.

Wavefront sensing based on a spatial light modulator and incremental binary random sampling

A wavefront sensing method based on a spatial light modulator (SLM) and an incremental binary random sampling (IBRS) algorithm is proposed. In this method, the recording setup is built just by a transmittance SLM and an image sensor. The tested wavefront incident to the SLM plane can be quantitatively retrieved from the diffraction intensities of the wavefront passed through the SLM displaying a IBRS pattern. Because only two modulation states (opaque and transparent) of the SLM are used, the method does not need to know the concrete modulation function of the SLM in advance. In addition by introducing the concept of the incremental random sampling into wavefront sensing, the adaptability of phase retrieving based on the diffraction intensities is significantly improved. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has used this concept for the same purpose. Some experimental results are given for demonstrating the feasibility of our method.