Floating three-dimensional display viewable from 360 degrees

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.