Holographic 3D display, capable of recording and reconstructing both the amplitude and phase information of objects, is regarded as one of the most promising 3D display technologies. To address the challenges of high computational complexity and limited performance in real-time applications in current hologram generation process, a fast hologram generation method based on effective viewing zone analysis was proposed. By constructing a geometric model of the effective viewing zone, the method quantitatively identified the effective regions of the hologram that contribute to the reconstructed image, enabling the reduction of redundant areas during calculation process and thus improving calculation efficiency. Furthermore, a virtual wavefront recording plane was introduced and combined with the novel look-up table method to optimize the diffraction propagation. Experimental results show that, compared to the novel look-up table method, the proposed method reduces the hologram generation time by more than 49%. Moreover, the computational acceleration becomes more significant as the object resolution increases. In addition, this effective viewing zone analysis method also exhibits strong generalizability and can be extended to all point-based algorithms, providing a new solution for efficient hologram generation.