As Avatar pushes forward the acceptability of 3D cinema and 3D television is becoming a reality, the EU’s research and development programme, Framework Programme 7 (FP7), is funding the Real 3D project with the objective of taking digital holography to the point where it, too, can become a realistic method of delivering moving images in true 3D. As Thomas Naughton, the project’s scientific leader explained, what differentiates this project from others dealing with digital holography is its focus on capturing and delivering 3D images of actual objects.
Real 3D is a €5.87m project, with a €4.5m grant from FP7, which involves nine organisations - primarily academic research centres - working to establish ‘digital holography for 3D and 4D real-world objects’ capture, processing and display.’ Started in early 2008, the project is due to complete in January 2011. It is co-ordinated by Oulu Southern Institute at University of Oulu in Finland, and other participants are: Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at Bilkent University (Turkey); the National Institute for Optical Applications (Italy); the Advanced Photonics Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne (Switzerland); the Department of Computer Science at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth; the Institute of Micromechanics and Photonics, Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), Bremer Institut für Angewandte Strahltechnik (Germany), Lyncée Tec (Switzerland) and Holoeye Photonics, Germany - the last three being the only commercial organisations involved.
Real 3D is based on the premise that holography is the only genuinely three-dimensional medium which does not require glasses or other ‘interpreting’ equipment. The project is addressing the restrictions that to date, full 3D holography is static, and that stereograms and other moving or animated conventional stereo displays only provide horizontal parallax, do not provide motion parallax. The project aims to eliminate current obstacles to achieving a fully functional system for 3D video capture, processing, and display. Multiple sensors and displays will be integrated, and both microscopic and macroscopic 3D scenes are being addressed.
The project is on-track, and participants have already presented or published numerous papers on work or developments which have been part of Real 3D. An example is a paper titled Color Holographic Reconstruction Using Multiple SLMs and LED Illumination by the two representatives of Bilkent University.
information from the site: www.holography-news.com
