Highly immersive 3D holographic displays require extremely large pixel counts, creating a data transmission bottleneck that necessitates the development of efficient compression frameworks. We show that digital holograms can be compressed to below 1 bit per thousand pixels by encoding only the magnitudes of numerically reconstructed, lower-resolution images at multiple depths. Due to their image-like nature, standard codecs can be used to store such reconstructions at very low bitrates. Our gradient-descent decoder then retrieves a hologram whose propagated intensities best match this focal stack. Experiments show accurate depth and parallax reconstruction while outperforming existing hologram compression methods.
Kizhakkumkara Muhamad, R, Schretter, C, Schelkens, P & Blinder, D 2026, Millibit-per-pixel compression of digital holograms. in Optics, Photonics, and Digital Technologies for Imaging Applications IX. vol. 14085, SPIE, pp. 140850H1-140850H6, SPIE Photonics Europe 2026, Strasbourg, France, 12/04/26. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3105981
Kizhakkumkara Muhamad, R., Schretter, C., Schelkens, P., & Blinder, D. (2026). Millibit-per-pixel compression of digital holograms. In Optics, Photonics, and Digital Technologies for Imaging Applications IX (Vol. 14085, pp. 140850H1-140850H6). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3105981
@inproceedings{5d1bbb4e4f8c44dda2e0ed13bca77f20,
title = "Millibit-per-pixel compression of digital holograms",
abstract = "Highly immersive 3D holographic displays require extremely large pixel counts, creating a data transmission bottleneck that necessitates the development of efficient compression frameworks. We show that digital holograms can be compressed to below 1 bit per thousand pixels by encoding only the magnitudes of numerically reconstructed, lower-resolution images at multiple depths. Due to their image-like nature, standard codecs can be used to store such reconstructions at very low bitrates. Our gradient-descent decoder then retrieves a hologram whose propagated intensities best match this focal stack. Experiments show accurate depth and parallax reconstruction while outperforming existing hologram compression methods.",
author = "\{Kizhakkumkara Muhamad\}, Raees and Colas Schretter and Peter Schelkens and David Blinder",
year = "2026",
doi = "10.1117/12.3105981",
language = "English",
volume = "14085",
pages = "140850H1--140850H6",
booktitle = "Optics, Photonics, and Digital Technologies for Imaging Applications IX",
publisher = "SPIE",
address = "United States",
note = "SPIE Photonics Europe 2026 ; Conference date: 12-04-2026 Through 16-04-2026",
}