Princess Leia in 3D from Your Smartphone

A small team in HP Labs develops an innovative approach to displaying 3D images

POSTED 30 APRIL 2012

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Key takeaways

• A small team at HP Labs has come up with a technology to project lifelike three-dimensional holograms
• The invention was a massive hit at Tech Con 2012, drawing attention from many sources
• The innovation may make the ability to project holograms from mobile and home devices a reality in the not-too-distant future

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The 3D images look so real, you think you can touch them.
In the not-so-distant future, these images could emanate from your smartphone or big-screen TV, in full color and with cinematic motion. And you won’t need 3D glasses to view them.
When you view the images from different angles, you’ll actually see their different sides—for example, the profiles of a person’s face.
Sound like something out of Star Wars? Well, in this case, the innovation is not taking place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” It is taking place right now in HP Labs.

Innovation success story

Last summer, a small team of four employees in HP Labs came up with a novel approach for displaying 3D images. Their goal was to project the images using the same LCD display technology that is part of many of today’s electronic devices, from smart phones to big-screen TVs.
To make this work, the team needed to create a special backlight for those devices, allowing them project 64 different perspectives of a scene in various direction of space.
To complete the project, the four technologists used their 20% discretionary time over several months. All researchers in HP Labs are able to spend 20% of their time working on projects or ideas that go beyond the formal projects that comprise HP Labs research agenda.

• David Fattal, a researcher in quantum computing and photonics at HP Labs, came up with the concept and designed the first prototypes
• Zhen Peng, who started on the project as a post-doctoral researcher and was later hired full time, did most of the fabrication and turned an abstract concept into a reality
• Marco Fiorentino, who is currently leading a project on optical interconnects for computing, devoted a lot of his time to build the optics and test the chips
• Jim Brug, a 27-year veteran of HP Labs and expert in displays technology, is creating dynamic 3D images at video rate using this technology

As the project gained momentum, these researchers started spending even more time turning their vision into a reality, and were joined by process engineer Tho Tran, who greatly accelerated the fabrication work.
The 3D research has been a cross-lab effort between the Intelligent Infrastructure Lab and the Mobile and Immersive Experience Lab. The optics development has been under Ray Beausoleil, an HP Fellow and photonics expert. “Ray has been incredibly supportive, and saw the potential and importance of this from the start,” said Fattal.

A big hit at Tech Con

Ten months ago, Fattal and his team began by fabricating prototypes of the backlight, which were able to display small, static 3D images.

Image of one-inch 3D display prototype using a red laser.

“Zhen was in the fabrication lab cranking out one new chip after another, working into the night so we could get it right,” recalled Fattal.
The team’s first prototype projected a 3D image that was 4 millimeters in size—about the size of a number on a credit card. The image was of the letter X floating on top of the letter O, and in one color.
Once this prototype worked, the team advanced its chip designs so that the device could project an 8 millimeter image, then a 16 millimeter image.
A few months later, the team built a prototype that could project an image about an inch in size, and they were invited to present it at Tech Con 2012.
Their demonstration was a big hit. “I was very excited to see this demo at Tech Con. There is a lot of creativity and collaboration occurring at the grassroots levels at HP Labs, and it’s great to see their work attract the crowds that it did,” said Chandrakant Patel, an HP senior fellow and the recently appointed interim director of HP Labs.
“This time, the image we displayed was a cube,” recalled Fattal. “One of the people who saw our demo swiped his finger on the chip surface. He thought the cube was actually coming out of the piece of glass.”

Hologram of Princess Leia from the Star Wars movies.

In the future, as the technology evolves, it may be possible to project a vast array of rich images, including video, conceivably making your cell phone something like R2D2 emanating Princess Leia’s urgent message for help.

On the horizon

Currently, the team is working on larger projections. It is also looking to enable motion and all the color outputs in the red-green-blue (RGB) spectrum.
The team is also experimenting by projecting 3D images on transparent substrates instead of the opaque screens common to today’s LED smart phones and TVs.
Transparent substrates could open up an array of new opportunities. For instance, a transparent screen could be placed in the middle of a conference table so that 3D images of people attending a meeting from remote locations would make it look like they are sitting at the table with you.
The above-mentioned displays are envisioned to be manufactured using HP’s award-winning Self-Aligned Imprint Lithography (SAIL) technology for fabricating displays on plastic substrates. This is being developed by the Next-Generation Display project.
In addition, the team is working on building a more refined handheld device to demonstrate the technology to customers and partners. They aim to build a prototype within the next 12 months.

Meeting challenges

In addition to the highly innovative display, a variety of challenges still need to be overcome to provide continuous-view 3D experiences for multiple people without requiring them to wear glasses.
First of all, the display may require many more pixels than you have today in your home devices, such as a 1080p digital TV playing Blu-ray content. This vast amount of information must be carefully captured or created, compressed, transported, stored, processed, and displayed.
Researchers in HP Labs’ Continuous 3D project are addressing these and other related challenges.
“We discovered the physics behind this revolutionary invention only two years ago,” said Ray Beausoleil. “We’re quite confident that we’re way ahead of the rest of the industry. HP owns all of the IP here, so we can control our go-to-market strategy—and this technology can go anywhere.”