Augmented reality autostereoscopic 3D display based on sparse reflection array

In this paper, we propose an augmented reality (AR) autostereoscopic three-dimensional (3D) display based on sparse reflection array (SRA). The proposed display consists of a transparent light-emitting diode (LED) display panel and a periodic SRA. Benefiting from the advantages that most areas of the LED display panel are transparent and the arrangement of the SRA is periodic, the proposed display can realize a good fusion of real 3D objects and virtual 3D images. In addition, the proposed display has a higher light transmittance of the real-world object than the traditional parallax barrier based autostereoscopic 3D display and has a thinner thickness than the traditional lenticular lens barrier based autostereoscopic 3D display. An optical experiment of the proposed display is developed, and the experimental results show that the proposed display has a better display performance compared with the conventional AR autostereoscopic 3D display. Moreover, the proposed display is simple, which is more conducive to achieving practical applications in large-scene AR exhibition systems, glass curtain walls, and outdoor advertisements.