Rank analysis of a light field for dual-layer 3D displays

In this paper, a new type of 3D display, called a layered light-field display, was investigated. By using only a few light-attenuating layers located in front of a backlight, this display can present many views in different directions simultaneously without sacrificing the resolutions of each view. The essential factor for efficient layer-based representation, which has not been deeply analyzed in previous works, is redundancy- namely, a low rank structure-of the light-field data. Accordingly, to reveal the origin of the redundancy, a generative model, in which a textured surface located at a certain depth generates a light field, was formulated and evaluated in this paper. Our theoretical analysis shows that the redundancy depends on not only the texture complexity but also the depth of the surface from the light attenuating layers. The theoretical model was validated through experimental simulation of the display.