Light beam regulation and control system for light field display

Abstract

The invention discloses a light beam regulation and control system for light field display. The light beam regulation and control system comprises a parallel backlight source, a display panel and an imaging matrix. Wherein the imaging matrix is the core of the invention, the imaging matrix is composed of a macro lens group array, the optical core of the macro lens group is a diffraction grating composed of microstructures, and the diffraction grating is used for generating light sheets distributed in a full view field range; the display panel is used for encoding image information, and the gratings are in one-to-one correspondence with pixel units of the display panel; and the parallel backlight source is used for providing collimated illumination light. Aiming at the defects of low viewpoint resolution, incoherent observed content, waste of viewpoint viewing resources and the like in the traditional light field display technology, incapability of freely regulating and controlling light beams and incapability of meeting the requirements of high flux and large field of view, the invention solves the defects of the traditional light field display, has a wider field of view and a higher band flux, and can be applied to the field of view display. The method has a wide application scene.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to a light beam control system for light field display, belonging to the technical field of light field display. Background Art

[0002] Light field display is an advanced 3D stereoscopic display method that creates 3D images by recording and reproducing the direction and intensity of light. It aims to provide a more realistic and natural stereoscopic visual experience. Light field display technology simulates natural light fields, allowing viewers to see different sides of an object from different angles and obtain horizontal and vertical parallax, just like observing physical objects in the real world. A light field display system generally consists of a backlight module, a display panel, and a light control structure. Images are encoded using computer-generated or light field camera methods, and decoded by the light control structure to generate a stereoscopic image.

[0003] Traditional light field display technologies are mostly based on cylindrical lens array gratings or slit array gratings. This type of light field display technology not only suffers from low viewpoint resolution and discontinuous viewing content, but also wastes resources in the central viewing area, as viewers can only view the reconstructed 3D image around the device. Furthermore, this type of display technology cannot freely control the light beam and cannot be used in multiple applications, such as desktop and wall-mounted displays, and cannot meet the requirements of high throughput and large field of view. Therefore, to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks of light field display, a light beam control system for light field display is proposed. Summary of the Invention

[0004] The purpose of this patent is to provide a beam control system for light field display to overcome the above problems. This system is free beam imaging, which can provide a wider field of view and a higher bandwidth.

[0005] The present invention provides a beam control system for light field display, comprising: a parallel backlight source for providing collimated illumination light; a display panel, arranged at the front end of the parallel backlight source, for encoding image information and generating panel light under the illumination of the illumination light; a macro lens group array, arranged at the front end of the display panel, comprising a plurality of macro lens groups arranged in an array, each of the macro lens groups comprising a plurality of gratings arranged in an array, each of the gratings being used to expand the light of the panel light into a fan-shaped beam through a diffraction effect to form a light sheet and to control the direction of the light sheet to any direction by changing its own generatrix direction; wherein each of the macro lens groups is used to adjust the panel light based on a light sheet group with a specific display field of view, and to form a macro pixel beam in the light field display; the macro lens group array is used to form an optical microstructure system required for light field display based on a plurality of the macro lens groups, and to construct an imaging matrix for forming a full field of view through strips of macro pixel beams.

[0006] Furthermore, the macro lens group corresponds to the macro pixels in the display panel, and the imaging matrix constructed by the macro lens group array corresponds to the macro pixel array of the display panel.

[0007] Furthermore, each of the macro lens groups consists of N 2 The gratings are arranged in an array structure, each of the gratings has the same size, and each of the busbars has a small preset rotation step. The product of the preset rotation step and the number of gratings is used as the field of view in the meridional direction. The parallel beam of the panel light is diffracted by each of the gratings to perform a 360° panoramic display or a non-360° display. In the meridional direction, the gratings are arranged in sequence from left to right and from top to bottom with a small rotation step to form an array structure, or are randomly arranged to form an array structure. The gratings expand the light of the panel light into a light sheet, and the direction of the light sheet is controlled by the direction of the busbar of the corresponding grating.

[0008] Furthermore, assuming that the energy of the zero-order main maximum diffracted by the grating is I0, and the diffraction angle of the parallel light beam after diffraction by the grating is γ, it can be expressed as follows:

[0009]

[0010] Where λ is the wavelength of the incident light and d is the grating period.

[0011] The reciprocal of Δ is set to the angular resolution of the light sheet, which is expressed by the formula:

[0012]

[0013] Among them, r is the radius of the 360° viewing area, N 2 is the number of gratings in the macro lens group, and h is the viewing distance.

[0014] Furthermore, each of the gratings is composed of a plurality of microstructures, and the microstructures are arranged in parallel or non-parallel; in the case of parallel arrangement, the widths of the microstructures are equal or unequal; in the case of equal widths of the microstructures, the heights of the microstructures are equal or have similar but unequal values; in the case of similar but unequal values, the heights of the microstructures are randomly distributed or monotonically increasing along the grating period direction; different microstructures are used to refract the corresponding light sheet to different viewing distances.

[0015] Furthermore, each of the microstructures is a prism with oblique transmission, a prism with positive curvature curved transmission, a prism with negative curvature curved transmission, a prism with non-uniform surface transmission, or a reflector.

[0016] Furthermore, the light beam exit angle of the microstructure is set to θ and is expressed as:

[0017]

[0018] Among them, the tilt angle of the prism is a, which is the angle between the parallel light beam and the normal line of the inclined surface of the prism, that is, the angle of incidence, n1 is the refractive index of the prism, and n2 is the refractive index of air.

[0019] Furthermore, the rotation step δ of the grating is expressed as follows:

[0020]

[0021] Assume that the initial state of the grating bus is 0°, is the rotation angle of the grating busbar relative to the initial state, It can be expressed as:

[0022]

[0023] Wherein, n represents the serial number of the grating.

[0024] The beneficial effects of the present invention are:

[0025] The light beam control system in the present invention addresses the defects of traditional light field display technology, such as low viewpoint resolution, discontinuous observation content, and waste of viewpoint viewing resources. It is also unable to freely control the light beam and cannot meet the needs of high throughput and large field of view. The present application solves the above-mentioned defects of light field display, has a wider field of view and higher bandwidth, and has a wide range of application scenarios. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the present invention, the following is a brief introduction to the drawings required for use in the embodiments or descriptions of the prior art. Obviously, the drawings described below are some embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without any creative work.

[0027] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the system structure of a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0028] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of an imaging matrix of a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0029] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of a macro lens assembly of a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0030] Figure 4 A schematic diagram of light sheet generation in a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0031] Figure 5 A schematic diagram of a grating of a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0032] Figure 6 A schematic diagram of a wide-dimensional light field of a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention;

[0033] Figure 7 A schematic diagram of light beam refraction in a light beam control system for light field display provided by the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] In the description of the present invention, it should be understood that the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all the embodiments.

[0035] refer to Figure 1 A beam control system for light field display includes a macro lens array 2000, a display panel 3000, and a parallel backlight source 4000. This system can generate a wide-dimensional light field 1000.

[0036] The parallel backlight source 4000 is used to provide collimated illumination light; for example, the parallel backlight source 4000 can use Rangenberg white light, broadband laser or other light sources.

[0037] The display panel 3000 is arranged at the front end of the parallel backlight source 4000, and is used to encode image information and generate panel light under the illumination of illumination light; for example, the display panel 3000 can use a film structure, an ultra-high-definition liquid crystal display panel or other image encoding structure.

[0038] The macrolens array 2000 is located at the front end of the display panel 3000 and includes multiple macrolens groups arranged in an array. Each macrolens group includes multiple gratings arranged in an array. Each grating is used to expand the panel light into a fan-shaped beam through diffraction to form a light sheet, and can also control the direction of the light sheet to any direction by changing the direction of its own generatrix. Each macrolens group is used to adjust the panel light based on a light sheet group with a specific display field of view, forming a macropixel beam for light field display. The macrolens array 2000 is used to form the optical microstructure system required for light field display based on multiple macrolens groups, and to construct an imaging matrix with a full field of view through individual macropixel beams.

[0039] In this embodiment, a parallel backlight source 4000 and a display panel 3000 are used to implement input to a macrolens array 2000. The grating group formed by the array gratings can be referred to as a macrolens group; the macrolens array 2000 that forms the optical microstructure system required for the light field display array is referred to as an imaging matrix.

[0040] refer to Figure 2The macro lens array 2000 is provided at the front end of the display panel 3000 and includes a plurality of macro lens groups arranged in an array. This patent embodiment specifically describes a macro lens array 2000 in which i rows and j columns of macro lens groups are arranged in a rectangular structure. This reference figure only shows some of the macro lens groups, and other macro lens groups are omitted, including the macro lens group 2100 in the first row and first column, the macro lens group 2200 in the first row and second column, the macro lens group 2300 in the first row and j column, and the macro lens group 2400 in the i-th row and j column.

[0041] For ease of description, the direction of the macro-mirror group can be defined as the meridional direction, and the direction perpendicular to the macro-mirror group plane as the sagittal direction. Each macro-mirror group comprises multiple gratings arranged in an array. Each grating has the same size, and their respective generatrix has a small preset rotation step. The product of the preset rotation step and the number of gratings is the field of view in the meridional direction. The grating is an optical structure that diffracts light in the sagittal direction.

[0042] It should be noted that, in the meridian direction, the gratings are arranged in sequence from left to right and from top to bottom with a small preset rotation step to form an array structure, or are randomly arranged in an array structure. 2 The following example describes how the gratings are arranged in sequence from left to right and from top to bottom in a small rotation step to form an array structure. Figure 3 , each macro lens group contains N 2 gratings, this reference figure only shows some of the gratings, and the other gratings have been omitted, including the first grating 2110, the uth grating 2120, the vth grating 2130 and the Nth grating 2 gratings 2140.

[0043] It should be noted that the fan-shaped beam formed by the grating through the diffraction effect of the panel light is called a light sheet; each grating is used to expand the panel light into a fan-shaped beam through the diffraction effect to form a light sheet and to adjust the direction of the light sheet to any direction by changing its own busbar direction; the grating expands the panel light into a light sheet, and the direction of the light sheet is controlled by the busbar direction of the grating. Figure 4 As shown, the light passes through N 2 After diffraction of the grating, N 2 It should be noted that the reference figures of the embodiments of this patent only show three light sheets generated by light passing through three types of gratings, and other light sheets have been omitted, including light sheet 1100, light sheet 1200, light sheet 1300 and macro lens group 2100.

[0044] In this embodiment, the microstructures are optical structures that refract light in the sagittal direction without changing the convergence of the light beams. Different microstructures refract the light sheet to different viewing distances within the display field of view, distributing the light sheet across the entire field of view. Each macrolens group is used to modulate panel light based on a light sheet group with a specific display field of view, forming a macropixel beam in a light field display. The macrolens group array is used to construct the optical microstructure system required for light field display using multiple macrolens groups, and to construct the macrolens group array 2000 that forms the entire field of view through individual macropixel beams.

[0045] It can be understood that the macro lens group corresponds to the macro pixels in the display panel 3000 , and the macro lens group array 2000 constructed by the macro lens group array corresponds to the macro pixel array of the display panel 3000 .

[0046] In this embodiment, each grating is composed of a plurality of microstructures, and the microstructures are arranged in parallel or non-parallel; this patent embodiment is specifically described using the parallel arrangement of microstructures as an example.

[0047] In a specific embodiment, referring to Figure 5 , the grating is placed horizontally in the meridian direction, and the grating period is d. It should be pointed out that the schematic diagram of the embodiment of this patent only shows part of it, and other microstructures have been omitted, including microstructure 2111, microstructure 2112, microstructure 2113 and microstructure 2114. Assume that the energy of the zero-order main maximum diffracted by the grating is I0, and the diffraction angle of the parallel light beam after diffraction by the grating is γ, which can be expressed by the formula:

[0048]

[0049] Where λ is the wavelength of the incident light and d is the grating period. Given a given incident light source, adjusting the grating period can produce light with different diffraction angles.

[0050] After the parallel light beam is diffracted by the grating, it is displayed in a wide dimension. After the parallel light beam of the panel light is diffracted by each grating, it is displayed in a 360° panoramic view or a non-360° display. This patent embodiment is specifically described using the 360° panoramic view display as an example. Figure 6 As shown, it includes light sheet 1400, light sheet 1500, grating 2110, grating 2120, grating 2130 and grating 2140. δ represents the rotation step of the grating. The reciprocal of Δ is set to represent the angular resolution of the light sheet, which is expressed by the formula:

[0051]

[0052] Among them, r is the radius of the 360° viewing area, N 2 is the number of gratings in the macro lens group, and h is the viewing distance.

[0053] In one embodiment, each grating is composed of a plurality of microstructures, which are arranged in parallel or non-parallel. In the case of parallel arrangement, the widths of the microstructures are equal or unequal. In the case of equal widths, the microstructure heights are equal or of similar but unequal values. In the case of similar but unequal values, the microstructure heights are randomly distributed or monotonically increasing along the grating period. Different microstructures are used to refract the light sheet to different viewing distances.

[0054] It should be noted that each microstructure is a prism with an oblique surface, a prism with a positive curvature curved surface, a prism with a negative curvature curved surface, a prism with a non-uniform surface, or a reflector. Furthermore, the transmission prism can be made of a variety of glass materials with different refractive indices, such as crown glass or flint glass.

[0055] In a specific embodiment, the microstructure is specifically described by taking an oblique transmission prism with the same width and height as an example. Figure 7 The grating contains multiple bevel transmission prisms of the same material. The schematic diagram of the embodiment of this patent only shows some of them, and the other bevel transmission prisms have been omitted, including bevel transmission prism 2111, bevel transmission prism 2112, bevel transmission prism 2113 and bevel transmission prism 2114. The parallel light beam is incident on the vertical bevel transmission prism at the bottom of the prism and is refracted out by the prism. h is the height of the prism, the inclination angle of the prism is a, which is the angle between the parallel light beam and the normal of the upper bevel of the prism, that is, the angle of incidence, n1 is the refractive index of the prism, and n2 is the refractive index of air. The light beam exit angle of the microstructure is set to θ and is expressed by the formula:

[0056]

[0057] From the above relationship, we can know the direction of the light beam according to the incident angle of the light, the refractive index of the prism and the refractive index of air. It can be understood that the higher the height of the inclined transmission prism, the steeper its slope, that is, the larger the light beam exit angle, the corresponding longer the observation distance.

[0058] In one specific implementation, reference Figure 6 , the grating rotation step δ is expressed as:

[0059]

[0060] According to the above formula, the viewpoint resolution is: From the above relationship, it can be seen that the viewpoint resolution can be obtained according to the number of gratings arranged in each macro lens group. The higher the value of N, the higher the viewpoint resolution.

[0061] In a specific embodiment, referring to Figure 5, assuming the initial state of the grating busbar is 0°, is the rotation angle of the grating busbar relative to the initial state, It can be expressed as:

[0062]

[0063] Where n is the grating number. The above formula can be used to calculate the rotation angle of each grating relative to its initial state based on its number.

[0064] It should be noted that this application provides a beam control system for light field display, which can address the shortcomings of traditional light field display technology, such as low viewpoint resolution, discontinuous observation content, and waste of viewpoint viewing resources. In addition, traditional light field display technology cannot freely control the beam and cannot meet the requirements of high throughput and large field of view. However, the solution provided by the embodiments of this application solves the shortcomings of existing light field displays, has a wider field of view and higher bandwidth, and has a wide range of application scenarios.

[0065] The above content is a further detailed description of the present application in conjunction with specific implementation methods, and the specific implementation of the present application cannot be considered to be limited to these descriptions. For ordinary technicians in the technical field to which the present application belongs, several simple deductions or substitutions can be made without departing from the inventive concept of the present application.

Claims

1. A light beam control system for light field display, characterized in that: include: A parallel backlight source for providing collimated illumination light; a display panel, disposed in front of the parallel backlight source, for encoding image information and generating panel light under the illumination of the illumination light; a macro lens array disposed at the front end of the display panel, comprising a plurality of macro lens groups arranged in an array, each of the macro lens groups comprising a plurality of gratings arranged in an array, each of the gratings being configured to expand the panel light into a fan-shaped beam through a diffraction effect to form a light sheet, and to adjust the direction of the light sheet to any direction by changing the direction of its own generatrix; Each of the macro lens groups is used to adjust the panel light based on a light sheet group with a specific display field of view, and form a macro pixel light beam in the light field display; The macro lens array is used to form an optical microstructure system required for light field display based on multiple macro lens groups, and to construct an imaging matrix with a full field of view through strips of macro pixel light beams.

2. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 1, characterized in that: The macro lens group corresponds to the macro pixels in the display panel, and the imaging matrix constructed by the macro lens group array corresponds to the macro pixel array of the display panel.

3. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 2, characterized in that: Each of the macro lens groups consists of N 2 The gratings are arranged in an array structure, each grating has the same size, and each busbar has a small preset rotation step, and the product of the preset rotation step and the number of gratings is the field angle in the meridian direction; The parallel beam of the panel light is diffracted by each of the gratings to perform 360° panoramic display or non-360° display; In the meridian direction, the gratings are arranged in sequence from left to right and from top to bottom with the preset rotation step to form an array structure, or are randomly arranged into an array structure; the gratings expand the light of the panel into a light sheet, and the direction of the light sheet is controlled by the busbar direction of the corresponding grating.

4. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 3, characterized in that: Assuming that the energy of the zero-order main maximum diffracted by the grating is I0, and the diffraction angle of the parallel light beam after diffraction by the grating is γ, it can be expressed as follows: Where λ is the wavelength of the incident light and d is the grating period.

5. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 3, characterized in that: The reciprocal of Δ is set to the angular resolution of the light sheet, which is expressed by the formula: Among them, r is the radius of the 360° viewing area, N 2 is the number of gratings in the macro lens group, and h is the viewing distance.

6. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 1, characterized in that: Each of the gratings is composed of a plurality of microstructures, and the microstructures are arranged in parallel or non-parallel; In the case of parallel arrangement, the widths of the microstructures are equal or unequal; in the case of equal widths of the microstructures, the heights of the microstructures are equal or have similar but unequal values; in the case of similar but unequal values, the heights of the microstructures are randomly distributed or monotonically increasing along the grating period direction; Different microstructures are used to refract corresponding light sheets to different viewing distances.

7. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 6, characterized in that: Each of the microstructures is a prism with oblique surface transmission, a prism with positive curvature curved surface transmission, a prism with negative curvature curved surface transmission, a prism with non-uniform surface transmission, or a reflector.

8. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 7, characterized in that: The light beam exit angle of the microstructure is set to θ and is expressed as: Among them, the tilt angle of the prism is a, which is the angle between the parallel light beam and the normal line of the inclined surface of the prism, that is, the angle of incidence, n1 is the refractive index of the prism, and n2 is the refractive index of air.

9. The light beam control system for light field display according to claim 3, characterized in that: The rotation step δ of the grating is expressed as follows: Assume that the initial state of the grating bus is 0°, is the rotation angle of the grating busbar relative to the initial state, It can be expressed as: Wherein, n represents the serial number of the grating.

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