Project Grant 2549259

The National Science Foundation Division of Information and Intelligent Systems awarded $400,000 to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on October 1, 2026, under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070) to develop a generative holographic codec framework for accessible telepresence communication.

The project advances technology to capture a subject using one or a few standard cameras, transmit compact digital cues, and reconstruct high-fidelity 3D holograms on smartphones, smart glasses, and headsets. The framework integrates 3D Gaussian splatting, vector quantization, masked encoder-decoder learning, and analysis-by-rendering. Work encompasses three primary tasks: designing generalizable codecs for sparse multi-view and single-view inputs with recovery mechanisms for lost vector indices; developing sparse computing methods for resource-constrained edge devices using heterogeneity-aware global structured pruning, mixed-precision quantization, and pose- and point-aware attention mechanisms; and creating adaptive control via layered refinement and reinforcement learning to balance quality, bandwidth, latency, memory, and device hardware constraints. Comprehensive evaluation occurs across wireless testbeds, long-distance network links, and large-scale simulations. By reducing data, hardware, and computing resources needed for high-quality holograms, the technology supports applications in remote healthcare, interactive classrooms, emergency response training, workforce development, collaborative design, entertainment, and digital arts, particularly for communities with limited network capacity or equipment access.

Performance occurs in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a period of performance from October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2029. This is a Project Grant assistance award.