Walk-thru Fog Screen

fluor2 writes "Ever wanted a screen floating in air? Two scientists, Ismo Rakkolainen and Karri Palovuori, both from Tampere University of Technology, Finland have come up with an idea. It is called the Walk-thru Fog Screen. The fog screen, consisting of 'fog' that is blown down from top, and the protective laminar airflow creates a thin and crisp surface, pretty undisturbed by the air in the rest of the room, making it ideal for projector usage. People can walk right through this screen of fog. Their next idea is to use the fog as a touch-screen, making it even more accessible." For a screen one can walk through, the image quality is better than I'd have thought.

Comments

hmmm

[boogy nightmare]

is this what they call vapor-ware ?

S

Re:hmmm

[shfted!]

No, but it would be the perfect display for playing Myst...

It would make for a great cinema effect

[Ken Broadfoot]

I am not really sure what display use it has in the "real world" but it would make a great cinematic effect.

Also you could scare folks in amusement park rides making them think they are about to crash into stuff.

You could also hide behind it and spy on people maybe...

Who knows...

--ken

Re:It would make for a great cinema effect

[dmeranda]

In the real world, fog screens tend to make terrible pileups on the highways where the crashes aren't so pretend.

As far as amusement parks, good luck trying to keep a laminar airflow while a high velocity vehicle whizes by. And forget outdoors, the breeze would carry your image away, that's if you could even see it in the sunlight. Probably more useful in a haunted house ride...life-like ghosts, and cool the airflow and you also get the chill down the back of your neck too.

Re:It would make for a great cinema effect

[Biomechanoid]

Also you could scare folks in amusement park rides making them think they are about to crash into stuff.

Yeah you could also put signs before the ride saying "this ride is safe using smokescreens", but during the ride they actually crash really really hard into stuff.

Uuh-oh

[Jason1729]

From the article: The fog screen enables many novel applications indoors. Interesting applications include walk-thru advertisements on shops or malls, or a walk-thru screen in world-class museums, corporate showrooms, trade fairs, theme parks, special events, spas, theatres, science centers, lobbies, etc. We can extend the technology to limited outdoor usage.

Does anyone else find it find it very disturbing that the first application they suggest is advertising?

Jason
ProfQuotes

The foggers!

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't going to be used in business meetings, where projection screens are available anyway. I guess smoke-screens will be used as advertising space: One could use them much closer to or in the way of the customer flow at trade shows, without risking damage to equipment or consumer. For that purpose, a little image unstability may even prove useful as eye-catcher.

i saw it at siggraph last week

[plagiarist]

i saw it at siggraph last week in san diego. the wall of fog was not really very thick - though it did seem to be more transparent than and not as bright as it appears in the videos and stills on the site. it was still pretty cool and people seemed duly impressed, but i didn't think it was quite as convincing as a picture plane as it looks on the website.

as for noise - i don't recall it being noisy... it may not have made any noise at all. then again, the siggraph emerging technologies space is pretty noisy itself, so it may have made some sound that i didn't notice.

My newest peripheral:

[roelbj]

My vacuum cleaner is now a screen capture utility! Can I get a Hoover with USB?