Comparison of wavefront recording plane-based hologram calculations: ray-tracing method versus look-up table method

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Computer Graphics
• Computational Imaging

Background:

• Computer-generated holography (CGH) is crucial for 3D display technologies.
• The wavefront recording plane (WRP) method offers a framework for CGH synthesis.
• CGH calculation speed is significantly influenced by algorithmic choices and hardware acceleration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the computational efficiency and image quality of ray-tracing versus look-up table (LUT) methods for WRP-based CGH.
• To evaluate the performance of these methods on both central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs).
• To analyze the impact of object complexity (number of points) and object-to-WRP distance on calculation performance.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of WRP-based CGH using both ray-tracing and LUT calculation approaches.
• Performance evaluation on CPU and GPU architectures, measuring calculation time.
• Assessment of reconstructed 3D image quality.
• Parametric study varying the number of object points and distance to the WRP.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in calculation times were observed between ray-tracing and LUT methods across CPU and GPU platforms.
• GPU implementations generally offered substantial speedups compared to CPU implementations for both methods.
• Image quality metrics showed variations depending on the method, implementation, and scene complexity.
• The study identified specific performance characteristics and trade-offs between the two methods under different computational conditions.

Conclusions:

• The choice between ray-tracing and LUT methods for WRP-based CGH depends on the desired balance between speed, image quality, and available hardware.
• GPU acceleration is highly effective for accelerating WRP-based CGH calculations, regardless of the chosen method.
• Understanding these implementation factors is essential for optimizing the design of real-time 3D holographic display systems.