The Promises and Perils of Real-Time Holographic Display

Real time holographic display has been a long-term goal for many display engineers. The promise of true 3D display with accommodation and motion parallax as well as stereopsis is compelling; the daunting challenges involved in realizing such a display include a very high resolution display which scales radically with field-of-view and viewing zone size. Computation, bandwidth, and the requirement for coherent light are also significant challenges. Progress since the 1960s has been slow, but conceptual breakthroughs and the development of enabling technology have finally enabled significant demonstrations of some applications.