Computer generated holography using parallel commodity graphics hardware

This paper presents a novel method for using programmable graphics hardware to generate fringe patterns for SLM-based holographic displays. The algorithm is designed to take the programming constraints imposed by the graphics hardware pipeline model into consideration, and scales linearly with the number of object points. In contrast to previous methods we do not have to use the Fresnel approximation. The technique can also be used on several graphics processors in parallel for further optimization. We achieve real-time frame rates for objects consisting of a few hundred points at a resolution of 960 x 600 pixels and over 10 frames per second for 1000 points. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America