Compression defects in different reconstructions from phase-shifting digital holographic data

Three principal strategies for the compression of phase-shifting digital holograms (interferogram domain-, hologram domain-, and reconstruction domain-based strategies) are reviewed and their effects in the reconstruction domain are investigated. Images of the reconstructions are provided to visually compare the performances of the methods. In addition to single reconstructions the compression effects on different depth reconstructions and reconstructions corresponding to different viewing angles are investigated so that a range of the 3D aspects of the holograms may be considered. Although comparable at low compression rates, it is found that depth and perspective information is degraded in different ways with the different techniques at high compression rates. A hologram of an object with sufficient details at different depths is used so that both parallax and depth effects can be illustrated. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.