Next Generation of Holographic Images

suman28 writes "Imagine being able to view an image from all sides and have it interact with you. Scenes or images pop-out at you and change on the fly and are viewable in full color. Best of all, you don't need head-gear or any wearable device to make this possible. They are generated by a computer with two cameras that track your eye movement and there is a transparent LCD screen between you and the display that makes the pictures come alive. Though it may be a while before this becomes part of our daily lives, it is interesting to see what the kind of research being done on this. "

Comments

Another impractical "3D device of the future".

[raehl]

"Alright guys, we have 3D that anyone wearing inexpensive, lightwieght glasses can see. I think if we put a special screen between the image and the viewer and add two expensive cameras that must be able to see and track the viewer's eye movements, we will have brought 3D imaging into the future!"

Poppycock.

New ways to do 3D rendering are cool, but they're never going to escape the lab unless they do something not otherwise available in a more economical package.

Driving technology

[Charlton Heston]

Still the diffraction pattern from just one high-resolution hologram can easily use up more than a terabyte of data--enough to fill 1,600 compact discs

This is the kind of technology that pushes the speed of technology forward. Not only will gigantahumongous hard drives be required to hold this data, but extremely large memories, fast processors, and fast video systems will be needed. For a few years now computers have been quite fast enough. The web only needed a certain amount of horsepower, and as much as Microsoft has tried, there really a limit to how bloated and slow IE can be made. The newer chips eat IE for lunch. That's bad news for chipmakers, because it's hard to sell faster computers to customers who are satisfied.

This technology is not just going to help whoever develops and sells it, it's going to indirectly help everyone. Get ready for the next tech bubble in the next few years - except this time, when Greenspan says the magic words "irrational exhuberance" sell that shit.

More than one viewer?

[sssmashy]

The cameras can easily isolate the viewer's bright pupils, enabling them to track the eyes and adjust the location of the shifting stripes so that they always block the image in a way that sustains the stereoscopic effect.

Sounds wonderful, but one limitation that jumps immediately to mind is that the 3d effect is limited to a single viewer. I was reminded of the scene in "Minority Report" which shows Tom Cruise watching 3d video of his deceased wife, and then the eerie image distorion of the wife as the camera shifts from Cruise's POV to circle behind the projection.

Research application: proteins and molecules

[f97tosc]

A lot of research goes into undertanding how proteins and other bio molecules fold and fit together.

This can be difficult to understand for a researcher that is looking at a flat screen. Also hard disk needs for doing this 3D would not that ridiculous, as the view from different angles can be calculated from scratch based on the chemical composition (rather than stored than having the computer storing the information of each possible angle).

Tor

Re:Research, right...

[Trogre]

A fact little-known on slashdot, but:
Not everyone is obsessed with pornography.