Light-Field Displays and Their Potential Impact on Immersive Storytelling

Evolving ultrahigh-definition television (UHDTV) display technologies provide a welcome improvement over previous cinema and television images, including higher resolution, improved dynamic range, and more vivid colors. However, they remain fundamentally similar to past methods, i.e., a flat image in a rectangular frame is used to convey the visual art of storytelling. New technologies are now enabling an altogether more immersive and captivating entertainment experience. Next-generation light-field displays hold the promise of even more immersive images, with lifelike representation of 3D space, accurate parallax, and multiple focal points—all without the need for glasses or headgear. To benchmark future needs, it is important to understand the many parameters of image reproduction that create the illusion of an immersive image. Based on these parameters, the technical requirements for a light-field image system—including data volume and transmission bandwidth—can be estimated. It is perhaps no surprise that the storage and transmission of light-field data far exceed the available capacity in today’s infrastructure. Among the potential solutions is the use of a new method of encoding image data, leveraging vectorized representations rather than traditional image rasters.