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3-Dimensional Holographic Projector
NO WAY! writes: "Wired has a story about Dimensonal Media's demonstration of a holographic projection system at this year's Comdex. Apparently the damn thing can project 3-d videos or create a live projection of an object as it goes. This sounds unbelievable -- has anyone else heard of this? Check out the article." It does sound unbelievable, but then, so does the idea of thousands of tiny nanoprobes hidden in our food.
I remember seeing one of these at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry). They used a coin or a screw or something.
The image looked really good from certain angles (coin floating in midair), looked kind of distorted & hurt your eyes a bit (felt like they were crossing) from other angles, and if you actually looked into the hole in the top mirror, the resulting reflections REALLY hurt your eyes...
(I saw this about 20 years ago, when I was a just a little squirt, but have some good memories of it.)
These Dimensional Media guys are being real quiet about their technology, but from the vague details I've been able to synthesize from the various articles floating around the net, it sure sounds like they're using these kinds of optical tricks to create their "volumetric displays", although they're using larger objects than a coin and bolt, and the reviews seem to be impressed with the clarity of the objects, so they've probably improved the optics a lot somehow.
As far as their dynamic displays were concerned, it sounded like they had a 12-plane video source which they used to create a 3D image using their optical techniques.
Big versions of this are cool, but they're inherently big. The geometry of the thing requires a much bigger mirror than the size of the image projected.
This has been discussed before on Slashdot. Editors, you've got to research your own backfiles more. Just because Wired doesn't know anything about technology doesn't mean Slashdot shouldn't.
- The demonstrations on Dimensional Media's site are Flash presentations, or computer generated simulations of their proported computer generated recreations. Why no real video of the device in action?
- Under R&D is just more PR hype and broadcast clips from such internationally renowned scientific authorities as Fox TV and ABC News, and nothing else. The Fox clip makes no reference to Dimensional Media or visualization technology at all, but does have a couple of nice inserts from Star Wars and Robocop. Why no technical information about the device? No patents? No references to scientific papers?
- For a person to see anything, light has to reach the eye. An object must radiate or reflect/re-radiate it. Point a flashlight away in a vacuum and you won't see the beam since the physical objects (air, dust, water vapour) necessary to re-direct the light back towards your eyes are lacking. So how does DM's device point light into mid-air and have it form an image?
I'm not waiting for the IPO.
Dimensional Media
22 W. 19th St., 2nd Fl.
New York, NY 10011 USA
http://www.3dmedia.com/ phone: 212-620-4100
e-mail: info@3dmedia.com
Funny thing is, it looks like somebody took a Volkswagen Passat toy and mounted it on a motor shaft. If you pause the video about 1/8 of the way through the movie, you can see the support holding the "hologram" up.
Again, you need to understand how the technology works. The real Passat toy *is* being held up by the motor shaft. However, the real car is INSIDE the machine, and the mirrors are projecting it's image to where the people are watching. You seem to think this is a computer generated image. This isn't Star Trek. It's a real object being projected a few feet away. Do you expect the real Car toy to be suspended in midair? Something has to hold it up.
Also, look at the car about 3/5 of the way through the video when then spokesman is supposed to be waving his hands through the car. He is actually casting a shadow on the car, which again leads one to believe there's something funny going on here.
Take a closer look. Yes, he is casting a shadow on the car. The lights above are also reflecting off the car. The car itself casts a shadow. Why? Because the *real* car is in full view of the lights! If you look at his shadow when it passes over the car, it doesn't line up. His fingers appear in the middle of where his palm should be, etc.
Kind of hard to believe that Wired would be duped by something like this.
Wired wasn't "duped" by "this". They were at Comdex. They saw the machine in person. They didn't watch a video and write an entire article on it. *CLUE*
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