A holographic 3D display system is described that (1) always presents true-colored and true-orthoscopic 3D images regardless of whether the object is thin or thick, or the image is virtual or real and (2) accomplishes an effective data/signal compression apparatus that accommodates to both off-the-shelf detector and display arrays, of both amicable gross array dimensions and palpable individual pixel sizes. It provides a rectilinear-transforming digital holography (RTDH) system for recording and displaying virtual, real, or both virtual and real, orthoscopic three-dimensional images, the system comprising: (a) a focal-plane compression-domain digital holographic recording/data capturing (FPCD-DHR) sub-system; (b) a 3D distribution network for receiving, storage, processing and transmitting the digital-holographic complex wavefront data signals generated by the digital complex wavefront decoder (DCWD) to at least one location; and (c) a focal-plane compression-domain digital holographic display (FPCD-DHD) sub-system located at the at least one location.

The image observation apparatus introduces an object light, which is at least part of an object illumination light emitted from a light source and projected onto an object and which is reflected by the object, through a first optical waveguide to an image sensor, introduces a reference light, which is emitted from the light source and passes through an optical path different from that of the object light, to the image sensor, and records an interference fringe through the image sensor as a hologram. The apparatus forms the recorded hologram on a spatial light modulator and illuminate the modulator with a hologram illumination light corresponding to the reference light to generate a reconstruction light, and causes the reconstruction light entering a second optical waveguide optically equivalent to the first optical waveguide and exiting from the second optical waveguide to form an object reconstructed image.