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Walk-Thru Virtual Environment
diso writes "Walking through a wall is now really possible. WAVE, a Walk-thru Virtual Environment is a novel, low-cost, and simple method for forming a superior quality physically penetrable fog display. It is a break-through technology, literally! This work has international patents pending. An early prototype was constructed with honeycomb paper as a low-cost laminar airflow generator. When the screen is formed, images can be either rear- or front-projected onto it. Despite of being a very early prototype, the experimental fog screen already proves the operating principle with excellent results."
...as Penn and Teller would say.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
It's a very cool thing for Halloween!
That is one of the cooler things I've ever seen.
Think of the applications of this:
Finally, something that closely resembles 3d holograms
"Help me obi-wan, you're my only hope" and all that type of stuff
Also, it could be used really well in a haunted house
Casual Games/Downloads
the server gets wiped out.
sulli
RTFJ.
How is this different from the water screens that you see at the theme parks such as Disneyworld? (other than the fact that you do not need a lake)
This is cool, but not terribly new. At many light shows, sprayers/misters work churning out water vapor to provide something for the lasers to hit. I have witnessed several of these, and sometimes a screen is generated to facilitate the production of the light effects. This isn't really that much different, merely on a smaller scale.
superpr0n here we come!
who thinks these displays look like cr*p?
This gives the word "vaporware" an entirely new meaning.
Didn't they have something like this on SeaQuest DSV?
I'm not a hundred percent sure, but thats what sprung to mind when I saw it.
"Guess I forgot to put the fog-lights in"!
Instant Karma's gonna get you - John Lennon
Those of us who grew up in the seventies have been in a fog ever since.
Now I'll be able to play and it will feel real!
I wonder how dying will feel in this kind of environment.
This would be pretty cool if you could add it to a car. When there is a heavy fog to drive through you could project images of the road in front of the driver.
Fog has also been know to shut down airports for quite some time. If they could project an image of the terrian pilot would be able to take off without a hitch.
sounds pretty amazing
Sounds like diso is in the advertising business ...
commisioner gordan has been projecting images onto gotham city's foggy night sky for years ...
would be kewl though, you could enjoy them with 20+ others at a party...
ya, sexually frustrated, sue me
It's about damn time... think of the applications once it gets out of alpha...
/wild_speculation (Dim as dim)
- use it as a screen in a home theater... minimal exposed hardware, no screens to pull down or cats scratching at the pretty moving lights... woohoo! (downside: sneeze, and you'll have to pause the movie until the turbulence dies down. And Linus help you if you open the windows!)
- If this could be scaled down, think about the niftiness of laptop screens made with this! You could even scale them to your particular situation. (on the plane in Coach? Have a nice 12" screen. Made it to the hotel in one piece? Crank it up to 12'!)
- Use this in place of LCD screens for that fancy artwork on your walls... hmm, I wonder if you could rig up to sense movement in the fog field... nifty "Minority Report"esque GUI, here we come!
- (submitted by co-worker who just happened to walk by) Rig one up in the ladies locker room, and project the wall about two feet from where it actually is. Hide behind fog, enjoy view. Hope they don't have a towel-snapping fight and blow away all your fog...
( he made me post that, I swear...)
(posted mostly verbatim, gross sexual innuendos, hand gestures, gutteral grunts, stick figures, and hastily made pop-up book omitted)
- This might make videoconferencing and videophones cheaper too... it would be nice to see some figures estimating how much cheaper this will end up being then LCD.
Ok,
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Still, it doesn't solve the problem of where to put the bodies, but my current moat-with-alligators seems to be working OK.
I'll tell you what the 'effect' is! It's pissing me off!
Ok, I've reached my plagarism threshold.
Yes, this is a very nifty toy. Yes, it deserves to be posted to slashdot.
But can you, the submitter, not scrape together the two brain cells required to post a summary in your own words? Or space the two seconds to type, "From the site:" and put quotes around your text?
It's getting to the point where two thirds of the articles posted have summary text directly copied from the site being linked to. This went from "minor irritant" to "annoyance" a while back.
Didn't we see something extremely similar to that fog-based hologram projector thingy (Technical Name completely lost to me) in Seaquest DSV?
I am the breaker of Chairs!
Seaquest DSV? I seem to remember the captain had a holographic AI projected onto a fog screen in his office. And that series was quite a few years ago now... I wonder if we'll be seeing a /. stroy on a "dolphin translator" next :)
They may have used the Holodeck to meet with Einstein and Newton on Star Trek, but we're too irresponsible with our technology to do that.
Immersible fog technology will be used for only one thing: PORNO, the same technology that brought a VCR and a computer into every household.
Fog porn will be the collapse of society! Beware!
it is a break-through technology, literally!
Timothy, you are guilty of wanton pun usage, and for that you must die.
Instead of using blowers, natural wind could be used to generate the airflow. If the laminar unit and fog nozzles are suspended over a bridge or such constructions, enormous vertical and/or horizontal fog screens become possible under suitable weather conditions.
Madison Ave has just creamed their Calvin Klines.
Finally, some use for the smog.
I don't have the FOGGIEST idea what the hell this article is talking about!
I know, that was pretty corny.
... like "Gone with the wind"
First interpretations:
This technology has a bit to go to achieve commodity-level feasibility. However, its very promising. I would expect to see this in clubs, concerts, and tradeshows.
This isn't 3D. Its a flat image projected on a water-based screen.
The drawback continues to be the placement of a projection device and its medium (if not a wall). Here, you have a fog wall and a projection TV device. Until those two converge, we'll all still hope for those "Help Me Obi-Wan" shots.
Shouldn't there be a way to build a floating image from the interference of two separate light beams? Wherever the beams intersect would be brighter/changed. Hmm.. Maybe only good for vector displays.
in my tiny Apartment. Brought the projector home from work and we all sat and chain smoked watching movies just underneath the beam.
There is a ride called "Indiana Jones" at Disneyland. One of the special effects used in the ride is similar to the water screens and to this WAVE.
In the effect, a machine sprays some fog, and a projector projects an image of "rats crawling up some vines" onto the fog, and your vehicle travels through the projection, which makes it seem like your traveling through a bunch of "rats crawling up some vines".
It's pretty cool, but only when the air is still enough for you to see the rats. People with rat-phobia can really freak out.
Other times, air turbulance moves the fog around too much, so all you see is a very distorted image of the rats (Imagine watching a movie on a shredded movie screen).
This product claims to reduce the turbulance by containing the fog inside a "laminar flow", whatever that means.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the Slashdot Effect. It isn't really a technological, fog screen thing...its the spirit of the server's ancestors, trying to warn the server about what could happen...
That same story has been on /. before, I just can't seem to find the link now. Someone please?
Looks like an ideal camouflaging method for my private Scud launcher.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
2 guys. 6 pack of beer. 1 LAN Party with crappy projector. "Billy, I need some more ice". Open refrigerator door. Presto! A walk thru a game of HALO and a story of Slashdot.org
-516
Geez! I can just imagine this with doom. I jumped enough with my 14 inch display, I can do without it being life size and ghostly.
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
*This work has international patents pending.*
Should have known.
A scripted reply to something from Timothy used to be "Please, just post it and DON'T comment - you have nothing interesting or useful to add".
After this post that will have to be modified to be "Please, read the post and see if it is an unmodified Press Release, in which case send it to ZDNet and DO NOT POST IT TO SLASHDOT".
I wonder how they prevent turbulence problems. Someone moving 'through' this virtual environmen obviously wordt perturb the smoke and distort the image.
That would remove the need for having a 'stale'
;-)
air environment... Think about it. The projection TVs right now do it. And it adds that nice look to it. So if this was encased between 2 sheets of plexi (both transparent, or the back one black) and sealed on the sides, with a vent on top, Voila, instant HUGE screen display. And no problems with it being 'foggy' (couln't help myself) or distorted..
What do you think?
Now that'be nifty picture frame for displaying my 5mp images on a wall, and it wouldn't necessairly stick out of the wall too much.
I want one
Although I think this is a very cool display, I have to wonder: How is this really different from the on-fog projections I've seen in the past? To me, making a semi-flat, semi-motionless wall of fog and projecting something onto it is not a new idea, nor is it a new method of implementing an old idea.
Bart (over the radio): "Rod, Todd, this is God." ..." ... hahaha."
Rod: "How did you get on the radio?"
Bart: "What do you mean how did I get on the radio? I created the universe!"
Todd: "Forgive my brother. We believe you."
Bart: "Talk is cheap; perhaps a test of faith: Walk through the wall; I will remove it for you
(Rod walks into the wall with a thud)
Bart: "... later
granted, it's cool... but I'll be impressed when it makes it onto the market. I can easily see this falling into the "really-cool-but-never-gaining-widespread-use" category.
plus, they mentioned that "The turbulence is due to poor fog feeding construction." but the time it takes for this to be developed, marketed AND find its way into more than 3 homes will give plenty of time for alternatives to arise that don't blow away when I leave the window open.
aoeu
That would almost be erotic if you're female.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Yeah... what do you call those things? Screens? Besides, that would remove the ability to walk through the image.
On another note. There has been some crazy case mods on /. before, but has anyone seen someone mod a case of bannanas before? A flavored fog-screen perhaps? I can only imagine the names: "tropical mist" or "mountain dew".
You need a projector to use this... It makes a screen, though the screen is only as wide as the base... and it uses consumables. How exactly is this better than projecting onto a wall? Sure, you can walk thru it, but why not just make a screen out of thin strips of paper hung from the doorway? same effect. For now, it's a waste of time. Perhaps if they had more control over the fog it could be useful.
This _not_ any kind of 3D display. There is no real depth, the source is 2D, and the main piece of equipment is a 2D projector. All it is is a way of adding what appears to be thickness to the display; things like the image of the hand will have depth but not hand-shaped depth, that is it will look like an extruded cookie-cutter of illuminated fog.
It's kind of cool, but beyond the novelty and perhaps some real niche applications, pretty pointless.
And this was posted some time ago, either in the comments or as a story, although I couldn't find it with a few searches.
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Could this technology be applied to projected interfaces, (such as the projected keyboards that are soon to come out)? It seems like this technology might possibly supply a type of portable or unobstructive interface when coupled with the non-physical interfaces. Say, you need to have a large interactive interface, possibly like a touchscreen, in a place where no flat surfaces are available. Or maybe a mall ad which when activated provides not only the ad, but an interface to interact with it.
I do security
... but it's not something entirely new... All this will/might do in the future is replace thise little pull down screens for projectors and such. If they require liquid nitro to make them work, then I dont see anyone other than maybe advertisers or the milatary who may want to use them. They will not revoutionive laptop screens. Consider the weight of a LCD as compared with a jug of liquid nitro, and a projector. Projectors are big heavy things, and putting one in a notebook, that is intended to run off of batteries for any given amount of time is just crazy. I believe someone tried to make a laptop with a projector built into it a while back, and it didnt work very well. (anyone got a link? I cant find it) It would be cool to have a portable (pronounced "luggable") very large screen for political presentations, lans, expos whatever though. ~Lack of sig~
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
We saw this years ago in Seaquest/DSV. It's fiction work, though...
Would it count as prior art?
I'd like to view the movie on that page. I can't. It's /.-ed.
/. linked to, and then other people can download it from peers? It could make use of Gnutella or some existing network.
But I know quite a few people will have already downloaded and cached the file. Couldn't someone build a P2P system that automatically mirrored websites that
I can't see it causing any more copyright problems than the Google Cache, if it obeyed robots instructions and the like.
Has anyone else thought or suggested anything like this before?
Now we can play first person shooters using real bullets, real head butts and punches.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They claim "patent pending" which means they've applied for a patent. And hopefully, the examiners will have enough sense to reject it because of prior art.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I don't see any smog outside my window in Muncie, IN, USA and I doubt that Bush sees any smog when he's on his ranch...
I wish they'd get this war over with so they'd go back to not pretending that they actually care about the citizens of the United States.
Wasn't this technology formally introduced to the widespread public in the sixties?
Its called marijuana.
"Fog Screen Virtual Environment" is just another way of saying hot boxed.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
Huh? What?
Actually, London would do pretty well, and sometimes Seattle.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Think of what this could do for sets in film making. No more obvious green screens.
I've actually witnessed this thingy live in action, and must say it looked much better than in the pictures -although it's still not quite on the same iceberg with traditional contrivances for visual information.
The 'new' part about this is indeed the system to keep the fog smooth enough to be able to make it useful, as some bright individuals have already deducted, not the idea of projecting video on fog..
E
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
That should be an acronym by now, shouldn't it? BDB=Been Done Before.
Long ago, probably 10 years ago, I saw old-style "laserium" projections onto aerosols. They often do outdoor displays on lakes or rivers (usually in conjunction with fireworks) and they have barges with pumps that spray up big sheets of water. They project the laser light onto the water spray, it makes a nice white reflective screen that shimmers. It looks really cool.
they want their display technology back. doesn't anyone remember the "computer interface" that the captain would talk to in his quarters? It was video of some professorial-looking type, projected onto a screen of fog. What a ripoff! Can the patent office get any stupider??
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~ira/kuvat/web2.jpg
"Say, what should we do with this old banana cardboard box here?" "I know! Lets use it as a stand for our futuristic invention!"
"Mommy, someday can I see the video, too?" "Yes, son. As soon as the Slashdotting is done." "When is that?" "When all the nerds find something else to click on, honey."
...but I'm having trouble figuring out why you'd want a 2D display you can penetrate. A 3D one would be cool, since you could walk around in a CAD projection, for example, but this one seems more like a gimmick than anything else.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
so if this was to take off, think of the extra support stuff that has to get installed for it to work in your home/office: cryogenic plumbing.
yes, that's right, you'd have to have LN2 tanks in the basement and the welding supply truck would have to come by and either refill them or exchange them. Plus you'd have to plumb it from the tank to wherever your magic screens would be.
Can you see this in Manhatten? in addition to the Steam Tunnels, there would be LN2 tunnels all over town.
Ok, this is a deja-vu for me since I remember seeing this type of display technology on the SeaQuest series several years ago, where Capt. Bridger talks to his computerized friend who shows his face on the "fog screen".
Anyone done any research on this, or where the SeaQuest producers got the idea?
-- Robi
Just get up really early before the sun rises on a foggy, misty morning, head out on the highway and turn your brights on...
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
As we all know, a neccesary component of any future society (Star Trek aside) is really crappy display technologies which are "cooler" than they are functional. If it's vertical and transparent, who needs legibility? If they can make this shizit three-dimensional by sacrificing some more resolution and possibly some framerate, we'll have a definite winner.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
If we're talking gaming applications, this could be a serious revelation for places like LazerZone or similar simulated combat situations... who knows? Eventually we could end up with games so realistic you actually die in them.
By reading this comment, you immediately waive any and all rights regarding it.
Prototype it right, people !
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3.243F6A8885A308D313
This one
Mixed reality and immersive projection technology can use CAVE-like virtual rooms with fog walls, making them effectively "virtual virtual rooms".
The preceding sentence is effectively unintelligible without immersive technical jargon technology.
What the fsck is *mixed reality*!? Immersive projection technology is obviously cooked up because *fog screen* is just too mundane. *CAVE-like virual rooms with fog walls*!?! And the topper: *effectively virtual virtual rooms*? Both sides cancel leaving an effective semantic value of null.
illegitimii non ingravare
Anyone remember Seaquest DSV? I remember the show had something similar in the captain's or computer room. A screen made up of fog or something that apears to be flowing but not solid.
Penguin_punk's response was good. Better than the original short-sighted idea, but .. but.... but...
Why did you need to include Rob.... naked.?!?
"Interesting applications could include walk-thru advertisements on shops or malls"
Ok, so that's slightly disturbing. The last thing I need is to be physically involved in an advertising scheme. And of course you know every guy on the planet will want one just for kicks "I'm raping Natalie Portman! Hot Grits for me! Wooo!"
-Billco, Fnarg.com
to project an image of falling rats in the path of the oncoming ride vehicle. It took many years of tweaking to get it working reliably in the windy environment of the ride, but it is a pretty cool effect.
Basically, once you get to the point of being able to project light to any point within the fog ... heck, you've got yourself a working hologram, no? So screw the fog ...
... your 3d image would be lost, with you looking for taillights.
... didn't they use this (or a water version) on [geek warning] "seaquest dsv"?
And, uhm, have you noticed, when driving in fog, that you can't see very far into it? In order to get good image quality on it, it'd have to be pretty thick
So no. No 3d. Not with this. And
Finally I can paint a tunnel and run through it!
It may not be 3D just now, but it strikes me as amazingly simple to make it into 3D (although some one can no doubt prove me wrong)... if you walk through the stuff, all you need to do is layer it... create a grid on the floor, and switch various "jets" off... that way you can at least a similar effect minority report style 3D projection... Easy. "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." Lily Tomlin
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency (Eugene McCarthy)
It would stick out just as much as with any other projection technology - the problem with projection is being able to project a clear enough image with high light intensity without ending with a ridiculously deep screen. That problem is exactly the same whether you project on fog, a piece of cloth, or your ass...
it's called Gardaland. They project a story on a 'wall' made by water shot at high-pressure all around. Nothing much.. but the fog was a good idea. I wonder if they can keep the fog in a glass sphere and then use lasers to make certain point inside the sphere (in a 3d plan) to be colored, thus obtaining a hologram.
Maybe fog can be substituted by a more transparent gas, just to improve definition.
oh well, just ideas.
cheers
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Didn't they already do this on SeaQuest?
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
It means that Reynold's number ... is < 2300, sorry!
OK, the white light and vapor display is walk-through, but not truly 3D volumetric.
I wonder if you could create a real 3D volumetric display using an aerosol of a fluorescent substance, and illuminate it so that the energy required for fluorescence is only present where two beams cross, then you could scan out 3D voxels.
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully.
"An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have
said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
"I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
"Too proud?" the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
she said, "that one can't help growing older."
"ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"
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