Very Large Format Stereoscopic Head-Up Display for the Airport Tower

Head-up displays typically used in aircraft and automobiles have limited fields of view, generally less than 30◦. Such systems can provide large, essentially unlimited fields of regard if they are head-mounted. A new alternative for provision of large fields of regard without requiring a head mount is a large format holographic optical element that can serve as a see-though polarization preserving diffusion screen. It may be adaptable to very large formats (> 2 m). The see-through displays it can support will not provide accommodative relief but will avoid cumbersome head-mounted optics. Some of the psychophysical aspects of this display technology, e.g., luminance, distortion, visual resolution loss, and depth rendering biases have been investigated and are reported below as part of a project to design a practical see-though display that may be used in an airport tower.