Augmented Reality Lightfield Display for a Smart Window Using an Active Pinhole Array

An augmented reality (AR) lightfield display can provide three-dimensional (3D) images at the locations of real objects. However, a conventional AR lightfield display has a few disadvantages in that its 3D resolution is poor and it is bulky in form owing to the use of an optical combiner or relay optics. In this paper, we propose a novel method to realize an AR lightfield display using a transparent display and an active pinhole array (APA) to enhance both the 3D resolution and visibility of real objects. An experimental demonstration verifies that the proposed method is appropriate for smart window applications.