Perspective distortion correction in a compact, full-color holographic stereogram printer

Abstract

Holography technology has advanced so much that it is now possible to record the object wavefront information on thin holographic recording media. Holographic stereogram printing techniques capture numerous ’hogels’—the smallest unit in holographic printing—storing an extensive range of optical information that surpasses the capabilities of other holographic applications. In this paper, we design a compact holographic stereogram printer that utilizes optical fibers to achieve significant system miniaturization. Specifically, the integration of polarization maintaining/single mode (PM/SM) fibers allows for the customization of the printer’s optical path. However, due to the wide field of view of our holographic stereograms, perspective distortion is hard to be avoided especially when the wavelengths or positions of the light source are not the same as designed values. The flat transverse plane is bent if the light source deviates from the optical axis. This distortion is easily understood by using a k-vector diagram, which illustrates how the direction of the outgoing light’s k-vector changes when it is diffracted by the grating vector of the volume hologram due to the incident light with undesirable direction. In this paper, the feasibility of our perspective-distortion correction algorithm is experimentally demonstrated.