Silhouette method for hidden surface removal in computer holography and its acceleration using the switch-back technique.

A powerful technique is presented for occlusion processing in computer holography. The technique offers an improvement on the conventional silhouette method, which is a general wave optics-based occlusion processing method. The proposed technique dramatically reduces the computation time required for computer-generated holograms (CGH) of self-occluded objects. Performance measurements show that a full-parallax high-definition CGH composed of billions of pixels and a small CGH intended to be reconstructed in electro-holography can be computed in only 1.7 h and 4.5 s, respectively, without any hardware acceleration. Optical reconstruction of the high-definition CGH shows natural and continuous motion parallax in the self-occluded object.