Star Wars-like Holograms

jeffy124 writes: "Business 2.0 has an article up about Ford's use of holograms during vehicle development. It's almost exactly like that scene in the original Star Wars where R2D2 ran a movie of Princess Leia saying 'Help me Obi Wan.' Basically, Ford uses the system during development to get a look at the car and various parts without needing to construct a full prototype. The image is a 3-D projection and hovers just above the floor, allowing the user to walk around the 'vehicle,' getting a look at it from all angles. I can picture the pr0n jokes now!"

Comments

Exactly like that scene in Star Wars?

[nathanh]

The article says nothing of the sort. The article says that the hologram is still captured on a 2D piece of film. All that's different is that the image is computer-generated rather than from light shining off a physical 3D object. The only mention of Star Wars in the article is as an analogy.

I was just thinking about 3D

[ObviousGuy]

Actually I was thinking about 4D, as in hypercubes, and trying to wrap my mind around the idea of what it would be like for someone in the 3 dimensional world to suddenly be transported to a 4 dimensional world. I wondered if the perceptions that person would have would be of the fourth spatial dimension or merely three dimensional representations of the fourth dimension.

Ford's plan to use three dimensional imaging to showcase cars is much like a thought I had today regarding the layout of my desk. I don't have one of those flat desks that are so common with executives. Rather, I have a few shelves and cubby holes to hold my stuff. I was trying to think of a way to organize all of it without actually pulling everything out of its place, and at that point I thought about modeling it on the computer using a CAD program. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those here at work and no one is likely to spring for one either, so I have to do it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.

That's when it hit me. Why *isn't* there a three dimensional modeling program that can help lay out desktops? People rearrange their desktops all the time, whether to clean them off or to simply change the scenery. I didn't want to duplicate any effort that may have already gone into this so I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot, but apparently it's not edgy enough or something.

Can anyone help me? Is there a 3 dimensional modeling tool for laying out desktops?

Re:I was just thinking about 3D

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately the shadow from a 2d object is also 2d, so your theory needs a little work :)

Re:Article and a comment or two

[GigsVT]

Don't like it? Don't read it.

It would be nice if it were that simple, but eventually people like you are going to piss off enough of the wrong people and Slashdot is going to be sued yet again for copyright infringement. It's not like LNUX is really rolling in money, those lawyers are costly to retain.

Re:A screen made of fog

[Pete (big-pete)]

Anwyay, before we try to make 3D representations of objects in the air we should try to make them in 2D reliably. We had to learn to walk before we ran, now didn't we?

I think you could call a device to create a 2D image in the air reliably a "projector"? ;)

-- Pete.