Three-dimensional display system based on computer-generated integral photography

In this paper, we propose a CGIP (Computer-Generated Integral Photography) method and verify its feasibility. In CGIP, the elemental images of imaginary objects are computer-generated instead of using pickup process. Since this system is composed of only one lens array and conventional display devices, it is compact and cost effective. The animated image can also be presented by the time-varying elemental images. As a result, autostereoscopic images with full color and full parallax were observed in real time. Moreover, this method can be applied to a quasi-3D display system. If each camera picks a scene which is a part of total view and elemental images are generated so that each scene has different depth, real objects captured by ordinary cameras can be displayed in quasi-3D. In addition, since it is easy to change the shape or size of elemental images in this scheme, we can observe the effect of several viewing parameters. This helps us to analyze the basic IP system. We perform an experiment with different lens arrays and compare the results. The lateral and depth resolution of the integrated image is limited by some factors such as the image position, object thickness, the lens width, and the pixel size of display panel.