A Big Step Toward the Practical Application of 3D Holography With High-Performance Computers

Japanese computer scientists have developed a special purpose computer that can project high-quality three-dimensional (3D) holography as video. The research team led by Tomoyoshi Ito (professor at the Institute for Global Prominent Research, Chiba University), has been working to increase the speed of the holographic projections by developing new hardware.

Holography has a long history. Since 1960, when the first laser was invented, many works involving laser holograms have been produced. For digitalizing these analog technologies and developing electron holography techniques to project 3D holography images as video, computing powers with more than 10 frames per second and 1 trillion pixels per frame are required. Therefore, hardware development as well as corresponding software development represents some of the biggest challenges for researchers in this field. Also, to make a 3D object from two-dimensional (2D) data, it is necessary to consider several factors, which include the binocular parallax, motion parallax, convergence angle, focus adjustment and estimates made based on human experience. Currently, general 3D televisions use binocular parallax for the stereoscopy, but children cannot use this technology because it has the potential to damage their health (a risk, that is related to the difference between the distances that a brain perceives and those that the eyes focus on). Many researchers around the world have been investing in video holography, which may allow more people to enjoy 3D TVs safely.

Ito, who is an astronomer and a computer scientist, began working on specially designed computers for holography, called HORN in 1992. The HORN-8, which adopts a calculation method, the amplitude type for adjusting the intensity of light, was recognized as the world’s fastest computer for holography in a publication in the international science journal Nature Electronics on April 17, 2018. With the newly developed ‘phase type’ HORN-8, the calculation method for adjusting the phase of light was implemented and the researchers were successful at projecting holography information as a 3D video with high quality images. ‘We have been developing high speed computers for 3D holography by implementing the knowledge of information engineering and the technology of electrical and electronic engineering and by learning insights from computer science and optical methods. This is a result of the interdisciplinary approach of our research that has been conducted for over 25 years with the commendable effort by our students, who have been studying at our lab.’, Tomoyoshi Ito said. Takashi Nishitsuji, a former student of Ito’s lab and now assistant professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, who led the experiment, said ‘HORN-8 is the fruit of many people’s wisdom, skills, and efforts. We want to continue the research of HORN and try other methods from various perspectives for its practical application.’

In the latest phase type of HORN-8, eight chips are mounted on the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) electronic board. This enables one to avoid a bottleneck problem for the processing speed with the calculation method, by which the chips are prevented from communicating with each other. With this approach, HORN-8 increases the computing speed in proportion to the number of chips, so that it can project video holography more clearly.

Source: Chiba University, Chiba-shi, Japan