HoloTube: a low-cost portable 360-degree interactive autostereoscopic display

This paper proposes a novel, low cost, and portable 360-degree cylindrical interactive autostereoscopic 3D display system. The proposed system consists of three parts: the optical architecture (for back-projecting image correctly on the cylindrical screen), the projection image transformation workflow (for image rectifying and generating multi-view images), and the 360-degree motion detection module (for identifying viewers' locations and providing the corresponding views). Based on the proposed design, only one commercial micro projector is employed for the proposed cylindrical screen. The proposed display offers great depth perception (stereoacuity) with a special designed thick barrier sheet attached to the screen. The viewers are not required to wear special glasses and within appropriate range (< 5m) the viewers can view the screen at any distance and angle. The user study verified that the proposed display offers satisfactory depth perception (binocular parallax, shading distribution, and linear perspective) for various viewing distances and angles without noticeable discomfort. The production cost of the current prototype is about USD$ 300. With mass production, the unit cost is expected to decline to within USD$60. The proposed display system has the advantages of ease of use, low production cost, high portability and mobility. The proposed system is suitable for application such as museum virtual exhibition, remote meeting, multi-user online game, etc. We believe that the proposed system is very promising for the market of low-cost portable 360-degree interactive autosereoscopic displays.