When Holographic Communication Meets Metaverse: Applications, Challenges, and Future Trends

Holographic communication represents a transformative technology for reshaping the digital interaction landscape by enabling the creation of realistic, immersive, and interactive 3D experiences. This survey overviews holographic communication and its integration with the Metaverse technologies' concepts, advantages, uses, and many applications. Furthermore, we examine a new paradigm for integrating holographic communication with the Metaverse, emphasizing how holography enhances immersive quality of virtual environments within the Metaverse, making interactions more lifelike and engaging. Extending the integration of holographic communication and Metaverse, we examine this combination's numerous uses in various applications across various industries, such as education where virtual classrooms and 3D simulations redefine remote learning, a business where virtual meetings and product demonstrations create more impactful customer engagements, entertainment where immersive gaming and 3D broadcasting transform user experiences, healthcare where remote consultations and surgical simulations enhance medical training and accessibility, and remote assistance where real-time holographic support improves technical troubleshooting. In addition, we discuss the challenges and prospects of integration of holographic communication into Metaverse ecosystems, emphasizing key approaches and technical developments emerging technologies such as AI-driven content optimization, advanced coding and compression techniques, and new paradigms like terahertz communication and quantum holography. This survey highlights the revolutionary potential of holographic communication and offers insightful information on how it will influence digital engagement and connectivity in the future, eventually opening up new avenues in the quickly changing Metaverse landscape. © 2013 IEEE.