Double depth-enhanced 3D integral imaging in projection-type system without diffuser

Integral imaging is a three dimensional (3D) display technology without any additional equipment. A new system is proposed in this paper which consists of the elemental images of real images in real mode (RIRM) and the ones of virtual images in real mode (VIRM). The real images in real mode are the same as the conventional integral images. The virtual images in real mode are obtained by changing the coordinates of the corresponding points in elemental images which can be reconstructed by the lens array in virtual space. In order to reduce the spot size of the reconstructed images, the diffuser in conventional integral imaging is given up in the proposed method. Then the spot size is nearly 1/20 of that in the conventional system. And an optical integral imaging system is constructed to confirm that our proposed method opens a new way for the application of the passive 3D display technology. © 2015, Tianjin University of Technology and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.