Toward the ultimate 3-D display

Holographic stereography and a new photorefractive material may help create a 3-D display that reproduces all human visual cues. Several cues are used by the brain to determine absolute and relative distances: occlusion, relative size of objects, atmospheric scattering, texture, and shading are already exploited in the case of 2-D displays. Stereopsis and vergence are phenomena resulting from binocular vision. Different images are perceived by the left and right eye due to their lateral separation, and these images are interpreted by the brain to deduce distance. The public has been fairly accepting of this eyewear tradeoff when it comes to experiencing immersive 3-D, as theater attendance has shown over the last couple of years. While the mandatory eyewear and the lack of motion parallax are mild concerns with stereoscopic approaches, the most serious problem is the accommodation-vergence conflict.