Method for rendering and generating computer-generated video holograms in real-time

1. A method for real-time rendering and generating of computer-generated video holograms from three-dimensional image data with depth information, for a holographic display device, which comprises light modulator means, and which reconstructs only the wave front emitted by an object directed to an observer eye or eyes, where the position and viewing direction of an observer defines a view of the three-dimensional scene and where the observer is assigned at least one virtual observer window, which is situated in an observer plane near the observer eye or eyes, and where in a preparatory process step the scene coordinates are transformed and scene illumination calculations are carried out considering the viewing direction of the observer, comprising the following process steps:

3D rendering and generation of the depth map of scene section data between two parallel section planes, which are disposed at right angles to the viewing direction of the observer,

transformation of the scene section data by calculating the propagation of the light waves to the observer window,

repetition of the steps of 3D rendering and transforming, while successively displacing the section planes in the viewing direction, until the entire scene is transformed, and addition of the results of the individual transformations,

back-transformation, where aggregated data are transformed from the observer plane into a hologram plane which coincides with the position of a light modulator means, and which is situated at a finite distance and parallel to the observer plane, so as to generate hologram data for the video hologram,

encoding, where after a normalisation step the pixel values are calculated and transferred in a frame buffer in order to reconstruct the three-dimensional scene, where the individual process steps are executed on a graphics sub-system by one or multiple graphics processors.

2. The method according to claim 1 , where the process steps of 3D rendering, transformation, back-transformation and encoding are implemented on a programmable standardised shader and are executed on the same.

3. The method according to claim 1 , where the transformation describes the propagation of the light waves into the observer window by way of Fourier or Fresnel transformation.

4. The method according to claim 1 , where the 3D rendering and transformation processes are only performed for outlines of the scene.

5. The method according to claim 1 , where for colour representation the method is applied to each primary colour.

6. The method according to claim 1 , where the transformation into the observer plane is based on a constant distance between the scene section data and the observer plane, the constant distance being implied on the section planes.

7. The method according to claim 1 for an iterative solution of the transformation and encoding process, where the rendering, transformation, and repetition steps are repeated until the optimum solution, which is characterised by minimum signal noise, is sufficiently approximated.