Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Holograms
D3 writes "A Slate article talks about the failure of holograms to really catch on and the future of using computers to create true holographic video ala Princess Leia. The article covers some history such as the fact that holograms have been around since 1947. Lots of great geek-pop references as well."
all i care about is....is it a holodeck? if not then bleh.
Yeahhhh Babyyyyy!!!
that invaded the arcades around 1991 or so?
Hey remember those arcade places?
Combining "holograms" and "geek-pop" in the same article summary conjurs up some awful visuals....
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Do not look into laser with remaining eyeball!
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Finally my R2D2 prototype will be fully functional! You see I left the plans for my death star on them, but I can't see them.
My appreciation of Douglas Adams is far deeper than yours.
Sega Hologram. I can't believe the article actually went there. At least they pointed out that it was not in fact a 3-D picture. If you don't believe me, try playing one where someone removed the colored blocks.
You need not ask anymore why somebody would ever want a 500 TFlop graphics card that runs at 4 THz with a petabyte or more of video RAM. Imagine the computational power needed for high FPS first person holographic virtual reality games!
My rights don't need management.
It's that they aren't really useful yet. Yeah, we do have the technology to simulate a 3d image. You need shutter glasses or a bizarre narrow-field LCD display or some other fairly clumsy way to get at the 3d-ness of the image.
We do not have the holographic projector R2-D2 used for the famous Leia scene yet.
And that's why they haven't caught on. They're not convenient enough yet. I guarantee if you can duplicate R2's projector, they will catch on.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
A Slate article talks about the failure of holograms to really catch on and the future of using computers to create true holographic video ala Princess Leia.
Larger image, higher resolution, and less clothing, and they've got my consumer dollars.
TFA links to a company (holophile) which has a decent history section, and decent about section. Not great, but not shabby.
-J
So one day holograms became apart of our daily life.
Say you leave a hologram away message. You're not just going to stand their and recite your message/joke/song. You're going to have to put in some inflection, some hand movements, and some facial gestures etc. Pretty soon, we'll have hologram blogs with people acting out their favorite movie scenes. Hologram ads will be next. Than hologram porn. Than hologram gaming.
The future looks bright.
-Teiresias
Apparently, not to many /. readers care judging by the lack of posting activity.
Hmm, NASA spent how much on SHIVA and got a grainy 1cm^3 image at 30fps?
Solution? Outsource it!
"Help us, holographic pr0n industry! You're our only hope!"
i find your lack of faith disturbing. how can a community of self-professed nerds *not* care about holograms?
The ingested food after some time will become part of your body. When you leave holodeck suddnely this part will disappear causing serious medical complications.
...we need a Futurama quote (:
Kif: This is the Holo-Shed. It can simulate anything you desire, and nothing can hurt you. Except when it malfunctions and the holograms become real.
Amy: Well, that probably won't happen this time.
Kif: Computer; Run program Kif-1.
Amy: This is so beautiful!
Kif: Yes. I programmed it in for you! 4 million lines of BASIC!
After reading the article on Firefox, the same sort of browser I use to read Slashdot, I found that the best part of the article were the apparently random and inexplicable links. But the best part was how it obsessed over a theoretical far-off pie-in-the-sky technology of pure holography instead of focussing on the up-and-coming developments in 3d display.
Once they become ubiqitous (?) they will succede. I guess thats the definition of success though. I think it all has to do with price. Its a bit of a chicken and egg situation. They would be cheap if they were on every computer, but they won't be on every computer until someone writes the killer app. It is much less likely that someone will write the killer app until they are on every computer.
"brxref
that was mentioned in the article?
"If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
-Lewis Black
My gazpacho soup is cold!!!
What happened to the promised hologram storage?
-- Bryan
Yea but you've got the order wrong.
1. pr0n
2. ads
3. games
4. blogs
5. ???
6. profit
The cheapest way to make a hologram: http://www.amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html
robots obey what the children say - TMBG
Speaking of holograms... for generating holograms without a laser (just your PC, a laser printer, and a transparency), check out the MedCosm CGHmaker.
Anyone know of a really hi-res output device?
From TFA: "You'll just have to hold your breath for another 20 or 30 years."
A drop in the bucket, baby. I'm living to 1000!
Sweet informative mod.
Holograms haven't caught on? They're used every day in vital economic activities. For example, without holograms, it would be impossible for Microsoft to produce legitimate copies of Windows; Microsoft would only be able to make worthless warez copies. The computer industry would grind to a halt.
They've also released limited edition $20 coins with holograms of Niagara falls and icebergs and such.
I'm sure other countries are beginning to do the same.
So when are they going to produce bills with hologrammatic movies on them? Or would a 3D clip of the Mounties's Musical Ride be way too annoying?
We all know that "they" have already created the technology, but based on the fact that it would undoubtedly end humanity as we know it, "they" choose to not release the technology to the public and "they" stifle any attempts to broaden reasearch in said field.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Dear god, I hope you're a script.
On a related note - what happens when Slashdot is taken over by scripts? Will they talk amongst themselves? Will they dream of other scripts?
Stoke me a clipper - I'll be back for Christmas!
yea but the FCC or whatever regelatory agency that the goverment creates will stop you from doing anything really fun.
You need shutter glasses or a bizarre narrow-field LCD display or some other fairly clumsy way to get at the 3d-ness of the image.
I think you mean LSD, not LCD.
Most things labeled as holgrams are crappy 3D effects. Such as those lenticular sheet 3D effects on magazine covers and breakfast cerial boxes.
This word missuse has really discredited those who have real holograms.
Then there are still image holograms such as the cheap Mylar prints that aren't too bad if lit right, but most people can't or aren't willing to get up proper lighting to display them effectivly. The fact that I can't just put a nail in the wall and hang it is a large setback.
The glass plate holograms are very expensive but when done right are frightenly real. Like one a friend of mine made of his head with a pulsed ruby laser. I really looks like a decapitated head in a box, in almost any lighting. He was showing it at a fleamarket and people would call the cops, or completely go histerical in horror screaming and crying, thinking is was a real head in a box (except it was just a flat glass palate)
Here is the big hint now.
Did you know you can digitaly generate a hologram compulationaly and print it on a laser printer, photographicaly reduce it and have it work as a hologram!
A hologram is really just a black and white print of the light interferiance patterns (that are much larger then the wavelength of light used).
You can even display these interference patterns in realtime using a LCOS chip if it's illiminated correctly,(mono chrome only) and product true holographic image. Limited to 1 inch across through and $5000 at the moment.
So if it were possible to get an LCOS that was 14 inches across it would litteraly be like a red tinted glass porthole into another universe. Will all the detail and resolution of looking out side the window of your office!
There was some very interesting experiments we did with this a few years ago. Maybe someday I'll have the time to write these up in more detail.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Lots of great geek-pop references as well.
You mean like Gem and the Holograms.
oh wait...
That's a stereogram. The biggest difference is that a stereogram offers exactly two points from which you can see it, one for each eye. A hologram has ? (infinity, if slashdot breaks my character) points.
:)
As long as you don't move, they're functionally identical.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
I guarantee if you can duplicate R2's projector, they will catch on.
That's the easy part - I want to know how R2D2 recorded her backside when he was in front of her. Sure, maybe be bounced some scatter-EM off of the walls, but that implies his camera wouldn't work outside.
Maybe he doesn't record at all - he just has a good semantic model and a hell of a nice rendering engine.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
[Engineering Log: Somewhere in the future]
"Well, we managed to create a holodeck with completely convincing graphics. The problem is that the AI chick we where all dying to meet has fallen for the marketing guy and claims not to be interested in nerds. Well, damn."
Real time, photorealistic holographic imaging is quite difficult. For one it requires more than just on color. Holograms are produced and re-created using monochromatic light sources. Not only you cannot have multiple colors you cannot even have different shades of the same color! Another complication is that for a sizeable holographic image you'll require substantial amounts of energy focused on relatively confined space. Your fire insurance premium are sure to rise faster than USS 1701D hops across the galaxy at warp 9.
Years ago I saw some work from Stanford (Bert Hesselink's lab, if I remember right) on volumetric displays. Basically they used a crystal as a "screen" for holographic projection. The density of the crystal was better than that of air and it represented a stable medium (compared to water mist of other vapors) to project a hologram. It sounds like smoke and mirrors but it was quite impressive and you could see the hologram in normal light conditions, not only in darkened rooms.
I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible. Holograms, however, are a good basis for developing new kinds of dense data storage systems with true associate recall capabilities. Interesting work on this subject was done by groups at Caltech, Stanford, Colorado State, and UC San Diego in the 1990s. The February 1998 issue of the IEEE Computer magazine features a special section on this kind of technology.
Do you dream of other /. posters?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
The interference pattern for the whole image is stored on every part of the image, from that part's perspective. In other words, if I had a true holographic photograph and cut it in four, I'd have four complete images. Just four complete images from four different angles.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I wonder what application NanoTechnology could have in the display of holographic images. The tiny robots could server to form the shape of the 3D object, and allow light to reflect from them, or better yet product the light themselves. Or maybe I've read one too many Crichton novels.
In Issue 205 of ZZZ Online, we discussed the HelioDisplay. There are some really cool holographic systems out there, but they're expensive and not quite what I think anyone expected.
The cool think about things like the HelioDisplay is that it uses water vapor to make the projection. I didn't see any of that around Princess Leia. I think the biggest obstacle has been trying to make holographic projections appear in space without having some kind of hard media (glass, crystal, etc.) surrounding it.
It's coming, just give it some time. If someone ever discovers Hard Light, I'd like to talk to them.
I think there are 2 parts of this that have to be developed: How the image is captured, and how the viewer will see the image.
There already is a way to capture the image. You would have to have a special room with numerous cameras around a the subject- ala Matrix. The different angles could be done via a liver version of QuickTime VR, or a similar product, both which do not exist, but would need a very high powered server to process all the images.
The downside to this is, who would want to have a special booth setup just to have a live holographic chat? That seems backwards, its like having a phone booth in your house in order to make a call. But I don't see how else your image could be captured in 360.
As far as viewing the holograph, the image would have to be projected on a surface, which is less like Princess Leia, but more like Orlando Jones in Time Machine. The image would not be a true holograph, but if there are sensors on the projected surface, they could sense the viewing angle of the person watching. Of course this means the viewer would have to wear some type of reflecting headgear to send info back to the sensors, but the viewer would not have to wear any type of glasses.
The main part that would be tough to develop is how to capture the 3D image without having to have a special booth setup.
In Korea only old people use Holograms
There were some interesting papers at the 2004 Los Angeles SIGGRAPH on using planar arrays of cameras. Lots of people have tried stereo vision- because we have two eyes- but why stop at two? Cameras, projectors, and PCs have been inexpensive enough that you can experiment with redundant arrays of these, much like RAID revolutionized disk storage a decade ago.
Now what can you do with a planar array of cameras? You are seeing one viewpoint, or two, but *all* viewpoints, coarsely sampled. In some respects this is like a realtime hologram.
Marc Levoy's group at Stanford constructed an image "cube" of a scence- all depths of view and points of view. You can pluck out individual objects in a congested space like cocktail party or animals in a cornfield by computer synthesizing the appropriate focus. It almost seems like you can see through objects or arround corners.
Two other groups performed wide-angle realtime 3D TV (without eyeglasses). You have all the viewpoints all the time. Another group used an insect-eye approach using a special lense array and camera on each arrays. Then realtime computing would rearrange the pixels to present a 3D image.
Theres many other ideas to explore out there, if you liberate your thinking from the point of a view of a one or two eye creature.
The strict conditions under which holograms are made greatly limits what you can generate images of. It isn't hard to make holograms, but to make bright, interesting holograms is more of an effort. If you only have a continuous source (such as a laser diode) the hologram has to be made in darkroom conditions, and vibration and temperature changes must be kept to a minimum. Exposures are quite long too - with the process I use, small plates are exposed around 10-15 seconds. Holographic Optical Elements and interferometry are some useful things that can be done, however a 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch reflection hologram holds limited fascination for most people, regardless of what you have recorded there. Some people are amazed when they see holograms, others couldn't care less.
==
I thought porn industry always supported technology! Where is porn is when you need it!
It's really not that hard to find with fingers.
It's a firm sort of ridge on the front wall of the vagina.
The biggest problem I've had is women that think
they don't have one. All women have one,
but there is much variation in size. It's important
that she's already aroused, as it's erectile tissue.
This is quaint nostalgia from limited imaginations. What you want is The Matrix.
With holograms, you can see it. But you can't smell, taste, or touch it.
Yeah, watching Angelina Jolie strip in 3 dimensions is sweet, but with the Matrix, you can be doing AJ.
Take it from Cypher:
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Just because you don't get the reference it doesn't mean its off topic, do a searching before modding.
Viva La Red Dwarf!
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
You're living in one right now. Why be concerned about how long the program will take to get to the part where the inhabitants learn how to do real time holograms? Just enjoy the trip. Heheh.
Heard any good sigs lately?
As far as I know, we can not control light, like R2D2. Until that feat is completed, I don't see how holograms can be THAT cool. It would be just all smoke and mirrors...
Of course I could be wrong.
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
I (and others) have theorized that it should be possible to burn a holographic image onto a CD or DVD. Yamaha demonstrated it could be done for plain images, but I was disappointed when I found it wouldn't burn pit-level resolution.
Unfortunately, standard interfaces don't give pit-level control, so you'd have to hack the firmware. Surely that can't be too hard, can it?
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
because I think that's exactly what we need for a "walk around" type holograph that we see in movies. The problem is that most hologram solutions right now are on a flat surface.
However, in the movies, the hologram appears to be suspended in mid air, and people are actually around it. The problem with creating such a thing here is bouncing the light off a surface, and also making it so that each angle produces a different image.
The only way I can see anything close to this being produced is if we have something like a cylindrical tank made out of low-reflectivity glass full of little particles, and a laser shines beams off whatever's in the tank to produce an image that "appears" to be suspended in air. I'm sure someone's tried something like this before, anyone know of such attempts?
Stereo goggles have been with us for many years. Why, oh why, can't I get a cheap commercial set and play Doom 3 with them?
Does anyone remember this game Time Traveler from Sega I never played it, but I recall it being a holographic video game.
I want that holographic table from Star Wars (either episode 1 or 2). The table that had the projectors above that displayed the battle... That would be cool!
Anyone know of a really hi-res output device?
How about a dvd burner? That has some pretty damn good resolution.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
In Soviet Russia, kipper smokes YOU!
Everybody remembers the Pricess Leia "hologram" that was really just a movie optical effect. But nobody remembers the REAL hologram that appeared in a major movie in 1975, two years BEFORE the first Star Wars.
Near the end of Logan's Run, Michael York's character undergoes an interrogation surrounded by surrogate projected heads that rotate and repeatedly drone catchphrases like "There is no sanctuary." Those heads are not optical effects. They are real, physical holograms of Michael York, made earlier and installed and properly lit on-set as the scene was filmed. Although they give the appearance of being animated, they are really a standard mylar-based hologram which was captured using a rotating slit; on-set, walking around the hologram would make it appear to move.
I've always wondered why this technique was never expanded upon. It satisfies the basic criteria, of being mounted into a cylindrical shape so that the entire audience may surround it. Surely by now some clever folks should have been able to figure out some way of using double-scanning slits or somesuch to allow each horizontal slice of the cylinder to represent one moment in time, while the entire cylinder was pulled vertically like movie film. Is there some elusive but fundamental piece of hologram physics that prevents this? Or it is just that nobody has actually tried it yet?
Actually there currently are true 3D volumetric
displays availible. Check out the Lightspace
Depth Cube.. it has 4 inches of true depth.
It has five layers per inch of depth and pixels
are interpolated between layers to give the
illusion of a seamless surface.
I've seen real time apps run on it such as quake
and they look great.
This guy needs to do his homework b4 saying
that nothing will be availible for 30 years
Jake
It was the headphone-hair Leia and not the prisoner-of-Jabba slave-girl Leia that appeared in the hologram. Otherwise those pernicious perpetrators of porn would have clawed their way to being first out of the gate...
Is that it requires highly sophisticated nanotechnology. Holography actually recreates the original wavefront of the light reflected from an image. To be able to diffract light in the way a hologram does, a holographic videoscreen would have to have pixels smaller than the wavelength of light.
I just counted a dozen holograms in my pocket, right now, on all my credit cards. There's another on my laptop, and my server. Perhaps they aren't used in the ways people originally imagined, but they've definitely caught on.
Time Traveler didn't have a real holographic display. Its 3D display was done with simple parabolic mirrors, instead of diffraction (the way holograms work).
Robotic instead of holographic sex, but you get the point:
Mother: Billy, do you want to walk your dog?
Billy: No thanks, mom, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
Father: Billy, do you to get a paper out and make some extra cash?
Billy: No thanks, dad, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
Girl: Billy, do you want to come over tonight, we could make out together.
Billy: Gee, Mavis, your house is across the street. It's an awfully long way to go for making out.
The entertainment industry will drive this technology. And, if the MPAA and/or RIAA have anything to do with it, it'll be EXPENSIVE.
It won't be like VHS movies.
It'll be more like your PCS phone. Per minute useage sound familiar? Or pay-per-view?
-- No sig for you!
I'll be in my room covered in maple syrup if your interested.
What a guy!
How about a dvd burner? That has some pretty damn good resolution.
The parent deserves to be taken seriously... Might it be possible to produce meaningful interference patterns using a DVD burner?
On two-sided DVD's, then, one could burn one's own holographic label on the front...That would be a very cool hack.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
*blinks*
I know that's modded funny, but... it's just crazy enough that it might work (always wanted to say that!)
Seriously, would it be possible to figure out a way to write a particular interference pattern to a DVD to burn a hologram?
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Holograms are synonymous with "real" 3D images. They've been around a long time because they don't rely on computer tech like almost everything in 3D imaging. They also provide a closed loop solution, they cover both image capture and display in a single medium, which has an elegant appeal to it.
The problem is theat they've been around such a long time and we haven't figure out a way to get around some very difficult limitations. The article points out that holographic video is years away at best. Live image capture will be very difficult. Meanwhile huge advances are being made in other 3D image captue methods. Real time surface capture is becoming a reality. Alternate the structured light patterns with natural light at about 120 FPS and you have full color 3D video. This requires a digital projector and digital video camera which are synchronized, a standard PC, and not much more. Other methods use laser, invisible infra red light patterns, and so on. Reasearch projects exist which seek to combine human 3D image capture and virtual reality display already exist. Holography was likely not even a consideration.
Holography is synonymous with real 3D in many people's minds, but there are many other ideas out there that could hold much more potential. Display is an issue, but even today's VR displays are likely better than any true holographic technology, and quickly improving.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
UFO's are holograms. Military has had the sky projection technology for years. Lockheed Martin developed it in the 70's - projecting from either ground based mobile units or C-130 type aircraft. Over America they use the images of UFO's - over third world countries they use religious icons over towns to impose fear...
Don't take my word for it. Scroll down to the "K-Holograms..." section to get an idea of how the military thinks and operates.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Just check out the web site. They ROCK. Gotta be the best job in the world.
Kinda like the wireheads from 'Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect'. Though, I'm sure the idea was around long before localroger made it the linchpin of his story.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Well, not a true hologram but a great 3D display that you can walk around from all sides: http://www.actuality-systems.com/
We ARE holograms...
it's the taking apart that counts
Mod parent down: -1, E-e-e-ew-w-w-w-w !
mod parent Ingenious
front [inside] wall of the vagina, which allowed me to easily picture what they were talking about. I don't think they were stupid enough to confuse the two. I'm not so sure about you, though.
Well gee look at that. 1947 is when holigrams originated from. And that same year we had a mysterious event happen in Roswell, New Mexico. Part of what was recovered was laser technology.
My Gawd WTF...