Three-dimensional displays using electromagnetic field computations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10902673-B2
Application number	US-202015930661-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 13, 2020
Priority date	Jan 16, 2018
Publication date	Jan 26, 2021
Grant date	Jan 26, 2021

Abstract

Methods, apparatus, devices, and systems for three-dimensional (3D) displaying objects are provided. In one aspect, a method includes obtaining data including respective primitive data for primitives corresponding to an object, determining an electromagnetic (EM) field contribution to each element of a display for each of the primitives by calculating an EM field propagation from the primitive to the element, generating a sum of the EM field contributions from the primitives for each of the elements, transmitting to each of the elements a respective control signal for modulating at least one property of the element based on the sum of the EM field contributions, and transmitting a timing control signal to an illuminator to activate the illuminator to illuminate light on the display, such that the light is caused by the modulated elements of the display to form a volumetric light field corresponding to the object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a computing device configured to generate data comprising respective primitive data of a plurality of primitives corresponding to an object; and
a display system configured to receive the data from the computing device and process the data for presenting the object in a three-dimensional (3D) space, the display system comprising:
a display comprising a plurality of elements; and
a controller coupled to the display and configured to perform operations comprising:
computing, in a 3D coordinate system, an electromagnetic (EM) field propagation from each of the plurality of primitives corresponding to the object to each of the plurality of elements of the display to determine an EM field contribution of the primitive to the element; and
for each of the plurality of elements of the display, generating a sum of the EM field contributions of the plurality of primitives corresponding to the object to the element.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computing device comprises an application programming interface (API) configured to create the primitives with the respective primitive data by rendering a computer generated (CG) model of the object.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises a plurality of computing units, each of the computing units being configured to perform respective operations on one or more primitives of a plurality of primitives correspond to an object in a three-dimensional (3D) space.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the controller is locally coupled to the display, and wherein each of the computing units is coupled to one or more respective elements of the display and configured to transmit a respective control signal to each of the one or more respective elements.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the computing units are configured to operate in parallel.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises at least one member selected from the group consisting of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable gate array (PGA), a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), and standard computing cells.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display comprises a spatial light modulator (SLM) including a digital micro-mirror device (DMD) or a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) device.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display is configured to be phase modulated, amplitude modulated, or phase and amplitude modulated.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is coupled to the display through a memory buffer.

10. The system of claim 1 , further comprising an illuminator arranged adjacent to the display and configured to emit light on the display.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator is coupled to the controller and configured to be turned on/off based on a control signal from the controller.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator is coupled to the controller through a memory buffer configured to control amplitude or brightness of one or more light emitting elements in the illuminator.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the memory buffer for the illuminator has a smaller size than a memory buffer for the display.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein a number of the light emitting elements in the illuminator is smaller than a number of the elements of the display.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the controller is configured to sequentially activate the one or more light emitting elements of the illuminator.

16. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator is a coherent light source, a semi-coherent light source, or an incoherent light source.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator comprises two or more light emitting elements each configured to emit light with a different color.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein:
the controller is configured to sequentially modulate the display with information associated with a first color during a first time period and modulate the display with information associated with a second color during a second, sequential time period; and
the controller is configured to control the illuminator to sequentially turn on a first light emitting element to emit light with the first color during the first time period and a second light emitting element to emit light with the second color during the second time period.

19. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator is arranged in front of a surface of the display and configured to emit the light on the surface of the display with an incident angle within a range between 0 degree and 90 degree, and the emitted light is reflected from the surface of the display.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the emitted light from the illuminator comprises collimated light.

21. The system of claim 19 , wherein the emitted light from the illuminator comprises divergent light.

22. The system of claim 19 , wherein the emitted light form the illuminator comprises semi-collimated light.

23. The system of claim 10 , wherein:
the illuminator is arranged behind a rear surface of the display and configured to emit a divergent light on the rear surface of the display; and
the emitted light is transmitted through the display and out of the display from a front surface of the display.

24. The system of claim 10 , wherein the illuminator comprises:
a light source configured to emit the light; and
a waveguide coupled to the light source and arranged adjacent to the display, the waveguide being configured to receive the emitted light from the light source and guide the emitted light to the display.

25. The system of claim 24 , wherein the light from the light source is coupled to the waveguide from a side cross-section of the waveguide through a light coupler.

26. The system of claim 24 , wherein the light source and the waveguide are integrated in a planar form and positioned on a surface of the display.

27. The system of claim 24 , wherein the waveguide is configured to guide the light to illuminate the display uniformly.

28. The system of claim 24 , wherein:
the waveguide is positioned on a rear surface of the display, and the light is guided to transmit through the display and diffracted out of the display from a front surface of the display; and
the controller is positioned on a rear surface of the waveguide.

29. The system of claim 24 , wherein the waveguide is positioned on a front surface of the display, and wherein the light is guided to be incident on the front surface of the display and reflected by the front surface.

Assignees

• Pacific Light & Hologram Inc

Inventors

• Blackley Jonathan Seamus
• Qin Tina
• Sefami Asher Zelig
• Qaderi Kamran
• Sararu Mark Anthony
• Wiensch Joshua D
• Kumar Rajay
• Colin Sylvain Marcel

Classifications

• H04N13/275

  from three-dimensional [3D] object models, e.g. computer-generated stereoscopic image signals · CPC title

• G03H1/04 Primary

  Processes or apparatus for producing holograms (G03H1/26 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06T15/10

  Geometric effects · CPC title

• G02F1/1313

  specially adapted for a particular application · CPC title

• G02B30/00

  Optical systems or apparatus for producing three-dimensional [3D] effects, e.g. stereoscopic images (in microscopes G02B21/22) · CPC title