True 3-D displays for avionics and mission crewstations

Three-dimensional (3-D) threat projection has been shown to decrease the human recognition time for events, especially for a jet fighter pilot or C4I** sensor operator when the advantage of realization that a hostile threat condition exists is the basis of survival. Decreased threat recognition time improves the survival rate and results from more effective presentation techniques, including the visual cue of true 3D (T3D) display. The concept of "font" describes the approach adopted here, but whereas a 2D font comprises pixel bitmaps, a T3D font herein comprises a set of hologram bitmaps. The T3D font bitmaps are pre-computed, stored, and retrieved as needed to build images comprising symbols and/or characters. Human performance improvement, hologram generation for a T3D symbol font, projection requirements, and potential hardware implementation schemes are described. The goal is to employ computer-generated holography to create T3D depictions of a dynamic threat environments using fieldable hardware. ©2005 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.