There is provided a near-eye device for augmenting a real world view. The near-eye device comprises a spatial light modulator comprising an array of phase modulating elements arranged to apply a phase delay distribution to incident light. The device further comprises a beam combiner comprising a first optical input arranged to receive spatially modulated light from the spatial light modulator and a second optical input having a field of view of the real world.

A pseudo speckle pattern generation apparatus includes a light source, a beam expander, and a spatial light modulator. The spatial light modulator has an intensity modulation distribution based on a pseudo speckle pattern calculated from a pseudo random number pattern and a correlation function, receives light output from the light source and increased in beam diameter by the beam expander, spatially modulates the received light according to the modulation distribution, and outputs modulated light.

There is provided a holographic projection system arranged to project light to a rectangular replay field. The holographic projection system comprises: a spatial light modulator, comprising an array of pixels, arranged to receive a computer-generated hologram and output spatially-modulated light forming a holographic reconstruction at the rectangular replay field, wherein each pixel is rectangular; and a light source arranged to illuminate the plurality of pixels to form the spatially-modulated light forming a holographic reconstruction at the replay field, wherein the rectangular replay field is spatially separated from the spatial light modulator and the aspect ratio of the rectangular replay field is substantially equal to the aspect ratio of each pixel but orthogonally orientated.

Dual or multi-modulation display systems are disclosed that comprise projector systems with at least one modulator that may employ non-mechanical beam steering modulation. Many embodiments disclosed herein employ a non-mechanical beam steering and/or polarizer to provide for a highlights modulator.

A method including determining, from a first hologram of an image, a second hologram of a portion of the image. The method includes providing or receiving the first hologram of the image. The method further includes propagating a complex field corresponding to the first hologram from a hologram plane to an image plane. The method further includes modifying amplitudes of the complex field in the image plane by setting amplitude components of the complex field that correspond to regions of the image that are outside of the portion of the image to be zero. The method further includes propagating the modified complex field back from the image plane to the hologram plane thereby obtaining the second hologram of the portion of the image.

A method for transmitting data representing a digital hologram includes: determining raw values of a group of parameters, the raw values being determined so that a first scalar product between the hologram and a first decomposition wavelet characterized by the raw values is the maximum; computing, for each parameter of the group, a refinement value as a function of a derivation scalar product determined on the basis of a scalar product between the hologram and a derivative of the first wavelet relative to the parameter; determining a coefficient on the basis of a second scalar product between the hologram and a second decomposition wavelet characterized by the refinement values; and transmitting: i) data representing the refinement values; and ii) of the coefficient.

A method of computing a hologram by determining the wavefronts at the approximate observer eye position that would be generated by a real version of an object to be reconstructed. In normal computer generated holograms, one determines the wavefronts needed to reconstruct an object; this is not done directly in the present invention. Instead, one determines the wavefronts at an observer window that would be generated by a real object located at the same position of the reconstructed object. One can then back-transforms these wavefronts to the hologram to determine how the hologram needs to be encoded to generate these wavefronts. A suitably encoded hologram can then generate a reconstruction of the three-dimensional scene that can be observed by placing one's eyes at the plane of the observer window and looking through the observer window.

There is provided a holographic projector comprising a hologram engine and a controller. The hologram engine is arranged to provide a hologram comprising a plurality of hologram pixels. Each hologram pixel has a respective hologram pixel value. The controller is arranged to selectively-drive a plurality of light-modulating pixels so as to display the hologram. Displaying the hologram comprises displaying each hologram pixel value on a contiguous group of light-modulating pixels of the plurality of light-modulating pixels such that there is a one-to-many pixel correlation between the hologram and the plurality of light-modulating pixels.

There is provided a near-eye device for augmenting a real world view. The near-eye device comprises a spatial light modulator comprising an array of phase modulating elements arranged to apply a phase delay distribution to incident light. The device further comprises a beam combiner comprising a first optical input arranged to receive spatially modulated light from the spatial light modulator and a second optical input having a field of view of the real world.

A method for encoding complex-valued signals of a computer-generated hologram into a phase-modulating optical element for the reconstruction of a three-dimensional object, and to a computer program product for encoding complex-valued signals of a computer-generated hologram, and to a holographic display for the reconstruction of a three-dimensional object. The object is to reduce the effort on encoding a complex-valued spatial distribution by an iteration method on the basis of phase encoding, so that the computer-generated hologram resulting therefrom can be represented more rapidly and with the same or an improved reconstruction quality. In particular, the convergence during the iterative optimization is intended to be accelerated. This is achieved by a method in which degrees of freedom of the hologram plane as well as the reconstruction plane are used for optimizing the iteration method for rapid convergence and maximization of the diffraction efficiency in the signal range.