Urban Photonic Sandtable Display

Program Manager: Dr. Douglas Kirkpatrick

The Urban Photonic Sandtable Display (UPSD) program seeks to develop a large holographic display to facilitate rapid and clear communication of intelligence for team-based mission planning and rehearsal, visualization and interpretation of real-time data, and training. Current 3D imaging systems are limited in volume, lack important depth cues, cannot provide aerial accessible images, and can cause stimulator sickness (nausea). The UPSD system will offer a system 3'x3' up to 6'x6' with 12" depth cues and 360° viewing range to enable full team, perspective-correct, collaborative viewing. The light projected autostereoscopic full parallax image will have high spatial resolution that enables realistic surface depiction. The key technical challeneges include the design and fabrication of high precision holographic optics, system design supporting high precision integration, a nd design of the video data pipeline supporting full color 30Hz updates for the 4 to 10 Giga-pixel array.