3D Display Using Passive Optical Scatterers

A new class of 3D displays uses a digital projector and a cloud of passive optical scatterers etched in a glass cube with laser-induced damage.These inexpensive devices can be used to display simple 3D objects, extend videogames to three dimensions, and create 3D avatars. Over the past century, researchers have worked vigorously to create a device that can display realistic high-resolution 3D content. As an offshoot of that, we are developing an inexpensive class of volumetric displays that can present certain types of 3D content, including simple 3D objects, extruded objects, and 3D surfaces that appear dynamic when projected with time-varying images, at relatively low resolution. Our displays use a simple light engine and a cloud of passive optical scatterers. The basic idea is to trade off the light engine's 2D spatial resolution to gain resolution in the third dimension. One way to achieve such a tradeoff is to use a stack of planar grids of scatterers where no two stacks overlap each other with respect to the light engine's projection rays.