MULTI-LAYER PLENOPTIC DISPLAYS THAT COMBINE MULTIPLE EMISSIVE AND LIGHT MODULATING PLANES

• US 20120182334A1
• Filed: 07/18/2011
• Published: 07/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ETH Zurich, Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Inventors: Ranieri, Nicola V., Heinzle, Simon, BARNUM, PETER C., MATUSIK, WOJCIECH, GROSS, MARKUS
• Granted Patent: US 8,643,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/694
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 30/27 involving lenticular arrays
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 30/30 involving parallax barriers
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 30/52 the 3D volume being constructed from a stack or sequence of 2D planes, e.g. depth sampling systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/31 using parallax barriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/346 using prisms or semi-transparent mirrors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/351 for displaying simultaneously
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/363 using image projection screens volumetric display H04N13/388
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/388 Volumetric displays, i.e. systems where the image is built up from picture elements distributed through a volume

Abstract

A multi-planar plenoptic display assembly is provided that includes multiple spatially-varying light emitting and light modulating planes. The display assembly includes at least one light emitting device and may include, but does not require, a modulating device used in conjunction according to display methods taught herein to display light field data. A display assembly controller may be used to render a light field with depth into a multi-planar plenoptic display assembly by assigning decomposed portions of the light field to the display assembly for display or presentation by differing ones of the emitting elements and by operating a modulating device to provide a parallax barrier. In one embodiment, a dynamic parallax barrier and a number of bi-state screens. Another embodiment uses a beam splitter to co-locate two pairs of autostereoscopic displays each including a projector projecting 3D content, a parallax barrier, and an emissive/projector element.

Claims

1. An automultiscopic display apparatus, comprising:

a planar light modulating device selectively operable to display parallax barrier patterns;

first and second planar emitting devices each selectively operable to emit received light; and

a controller operating the first and second emitting devices to display first and second components of a light field and operating the modulating device to occlude a portion of the light field.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first and second emitting devices comprise an array of point light sources programmable by the controller to selectively display the first and second components of the light field.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first and second emitting devices each comprise liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first and second components comprise view independent components extracted from the light field and wherein the first and second emitting devices are positioned to display the first and second components in spaced apart planes.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the first component includes view-dependent components extracted from the light field and the parallax barrier pattern is generated to mask view-dependent occlusions in the light field, whereby portions of the first component are blocked by the modulating device.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the modulating device is configured to be opaque or transparent at an array of spatial positions to display the parallax barrier pattern.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the modulating device comprises an LCD monitor.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, further including an additional light modulating device operable to display parallax barrier patterns, the additional light modulating device being stacked and operably paired with the second emitting device and the light modulating device being stacked and operably paired with the first emitting device, the light modulating devices being substantially orthogonal and the apparatus further including a beam splitter positioned between the light modulating devices at first and second distances and including first and second projectors projecting the first and second components upon the first and second emitting devices.

9. An autostereoscopic display method, comprising:

with a computer, receiving an input light field describing a three dimensional scene;

with a decomposition program running on the computer, extracting diffuse components from the input light field;

determining a nearest one among emitting elements in a multi-layer plenoptic display assembly for each of the extracted diffuse components and assigning each of the extracted diffuse components to the determined nearest one of the emitting elements; and

operating the emitting elements to display the assigned ones of the extracted diffuse components,

wherein the extracted diffuse components are view-independent components of the input light field, and

wherein the method further includes displaying view-independent components of the input light field on a combination of the emitting elements and one or more modulating layers in the multi-layer plenoptic display assembly.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the multi-layer plenoptic display assembly comprises at least two of the emitting elements and

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the emitting elements each comprise an array of point light sources to which the extracted diffuse components are mapped to perform the operating.

12. The method of claim 9, further including, for every residual ray remaining after the extracting of the diffuse component, identifying occluders in the input light field and assigning each of the occluders to a modulating element in the multi-layer plenoptic display assembly.

13. The method of claim 12, further including distributing partially visible rays among the residual rays to the emitting elements for display.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising identifying and then filling empty spaces in continuous surfaces and adjusting specular highlights in the residual rays to be at a same depth a counterpart one among the extracted diffuse components.

15. A multi-layer plenoptic display assembly, comprising:

a first parallax barrier display comprising an emitting device, a rear projection screen with a rear surface receiving light emitted from the emitting device, and a modulating device modulating light emitted from a front surface of the rear projection screen with a parallax barrier pattern;

a second parallax barrier display comprising an emitting device, a rear projection screen with a rear surface receiving light emitted by the emitting device, and a modulating device modulating light emitted from a front surface of the rear projection screen with a parallax barrier pattern;

a beam splitter interposed between the modulating devices, wherein the modulating devices are planar and arranged to be orthogonal to each other and to be spaced apart different distances from the beam splitter; and

a controller operating the first parallax barrier display to display, with occlusion, a first portion of a light field defining a 3D scene and concurrently operating the second parallax barrier display to display, with occlusion, a second portion of the light field.

16. The assembly of claim 15, wherein the light field includes a first set of occluders associated with the first portion and a second set of occluders associated with the second portion and where the controller operates the modulating devices of the first and second parallax barrier displays, respectively, to generate the parallax barrier patterns based on the first and second sets of occluders.

17. The assembly of claim 16, wherein the modulating devices each comprise LCDs programmable to display the parallax barrier patterns.

18. A 3D display apparatus using temporal multiplexing, comprising:

first and second planar emitting devices, the first and second emitting devices being spaced apart and stacked to be substantially parallel;

a projector projecting a first subset of a light field and a second subset of the light field using temporal multiplexing that is synchronized with operation of the first and second emitting devices to display the first and second subsets of the light field, respectively; and

a spatial light modulating device occluding at least a portion of light output from the first and second emitting devices with a first parallax barrier pattern displayed concurrently with the first subset being displayed on the first emitting device and with a second parallax barrier pattern, differing from the first parallax barrier pattern, displayed concurrently with the second subset being displayed on the second emitting device.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, Wherein the first and second emitting devices are spaced apart at least about 6 millimeters and each of the emitting devices comprises a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal display.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the spatial modulating device comprises a liquid crystal display (LCD), wherein the LCD and a closest one of the emitting devices are operated as an auto-multiscopic layer to create at least 12 views in a 10-degree field of view, and wherein the other one of the emitting devices is operated to display volumetric layers of the light field.