3D Images Using CSpace Display for Air Traffic Control Applications

We explore here the capabilities and performance issues encountered when using a novel static volume display, CSpace, for realizing moving images required to deliver real time three-dimensional (3D) visualization and manipulation for Air Traffic Controllers (ATC). The display uses a 19 mm ×18 mm × 100 mm 2% Erbium-doped sodium-ytterbium-fluoride (NYF) crystal as the image space, and a pair of digital micromirror devices (DMD) to address and render successive slices of the image within the crystal. Display-specific software and digital light processing (DLP) boards provide image data to and control the DMD devices respectively. The ability to render and display moving images quickly enough for applications such as air-traffic control is strongly dependent on several factors, including the speed of the software and hardware components. 3D images of aircraft in the sky and terrain were captured to explore how well the display performed as the time between successive images in a short motion sequence was systematically reduced, and to examine the key factors that control the performance of the display in presenting these images.