Blair Neal has compiled on Medium an excellent, in-depth look at various ways to display an image. This includes 2D and 3D renderings. It is broad, aimed at a more artistic and practical audience (Creative Technology).

An artist has a large range of ways they can display their work. Cave walls gave way to canvas and paper as ways to create portals into another human’s imagination. Stained glass windows were early versions of combining light and imagery. Electronic displays are our next continuation of this same concept. A photon is emitted; it travels until it reflects off of or passes through a medium. That photon then passes into your eyeball and excites some specialized cells — when enough of these cells are excited, your brain turns these into what you perceive as an image.

“Standard computer monitors, LED video walls and projection screens offer only a small glimpse of the range of possible visual illusions. Any traditional display can be augmented or used in an unusual way. New displays and technologies are still being actively developed and researched. Some content is suited precisely to being shown on a standard display, like a webpage. Other content is better suited to a space that exists beyond the screen’s surface and enables a sort of suspension of disbelief that this thing is really there. We continue to find new ways to construct the image of new destinations within the eye.”

Think of what musicians do for sound. Then think what the creative can do for displays.

Here is the contents of the document:

• Notes on Standard Displays
• Brief Note on Holograms
• Pepper’s Ghost
• Projection on Static Transparent Materials/Scrims
• Projection on Water or Fog
• Volumetric Projection
• Diffusion and Distortion Techniques
• Transparent LCD/OLED
• LCDs with modified polarization layers
• Volumetric Displays (Mechanical/Persistence of Vision)
• Volumetric Displays (Layered screens)
• Electronic Paper
• Flexible Displays
• Laser Projectors
• Head Mounted Displays (VR/AR/Mixed Reality)
• Plasma Combustion
• Physical/Mechanical Displays
• Appendix and Other References

See the Medium article or a handy PDF from the author.