Slashdot Mirror
Heliodisplay In Production
David writes "News of a 3D display that projects an interactive image into thin air, the Heliodisplay, is not exactly fresh. What is new however, is that this once far-fetched conceptual object is now real, working and being sold. For those of you who have forgotten, the Heliodisplay from company IO2Tech projects into the air (without a need for special screen) images fed to it from a variety of sources. In a way, it's a working version of R2D2s holographic projection system." A similar product, the Pocket Beamer was previously covered on Slashdot.
Having been about the radiology dept of the local hospital and having a few visits to the "turn your head and cough" clinic, thanks to a broken clavicle, I can think of a pretty good use. How about those ct-scans? Or is it really just 2D projected in 3D? Seems true 3D would appear muddy as you'd be seeing through translucent objects, unless they've come up with a way to make air opaque.
Obviously the applications for such a product are endless. Most importantly it may convince my wife to finally allow the purchase of the Brook Burke Swimsuit calendar for testing purposes!
Yesh! The most obvious! pr0n!
Dear Santa, I wanna Heliodisplay, a 3D camera, and Natalie Pr0tman for Christmas...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
Couple months back, I read an article about various aspects of Star Wars Science, and how plausible each was thought to be. Curiously, thin-air holograms were at or near the top of the list as "probably impossible".
I hope places like Six Flags latch onto this stuff. (I did get to see it before the site went down). The projected image looks much more solid than I would have guessed it would be. That's good news. Maybe now Rollercoasters and such can have a whole new level of fear and excitement added to them. Imagine hurtling down that drop at 120mph, right toward what appears to be a solid wall, no coaster tracks veering off to one side to ease your mind. Or perhaps a person standing in front of your car as you careen toward it. Maybe (holographic) people flying out of the car ahead of you as you careen around a bend. Such cool and nasty fearful things we could do to scare the pants of people now.
They do something to create a scattering effect for the lasers, but they say that they don't add anything to the air.
So, do they have a little compressor precipitating water which they then mist over the unit? Will it work in heavily air conditioned offices, or do you need to fill it's little water cup?
The technical description was devoid of useful info, but I bet an ultrasonic humidifier and a video projector could give you an R2D2 effect if you projected into free space.
I remember seeing the heliodisplay ~9 months ago, when it was still a prototype. They has some videos of the thing in action. It had, at the time, a few problems, the biggest being that the vents that blow the air which the image is projected on can cause ripples in the air flow that affect the image.
However, the cool feature the Heliodisplay has that I've not seen anyone mention is that it can register someone placing their hand in the image field, and move the objects around.
The relevant page from the article is here described in the heading as "improbable", but the article text says "impossible". Obviously the author doesn't read Slashdot.
Here is the related patent application:P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2F srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=1&s1='20040001182'.PGNR.&OS =DN/20040001182&RS=DN/20040001182
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
As I understand it, it condenses moisture in the surrounding air, and atomizes it into a tightly controlled 3D screen for lasers to project onto. Sounds like a next generation fog screen, plus interactivity.
Still wish I could see the video. And if they were this close to launch, and already patented, why wasn't it at SIGGraph?
Anm
I predict that the initial "killer app" for these things will be arcade gaming. I figure:
1. It is an insanely great, irresistable technology for gaming.
2. It is still too expensive for home gaming.
3. People who can not afford to buy their own will still pay to play one in an arcade.
Computers and game consoles replaced the pay-to-play arcade games which boomed in the 80's. That's because the price of computing fell so low that owning your own game machine became a better bargain than travelling to an arcade and paying a fee to use one. The same conditions which supported arcades in the past, awsome gaming hardware unafordable in the home market, may have returned here.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Namaste
The ideal cost of an object is the maximum each individual customer is willing to pay for it.
That was back before the Wal*Mart Effect took over. Now the ideal cost of an object is the maximum ALL individual customers are willing to pay for it- as long as the manufacturing costs are less than 60% of that. You can slide up to 80%, but unless the retailer can make a 20% profit they simply won't carry the item.
By not publicly setting a price one can "personalize" the price for each individual customer, maximizing profit while not turning away lower paying customers.
Which just insures that some third world nation will have a manufacturer that will poach your patent- and undersell you by thousands on the wholesale level.
Of course this only works when you can adequately segment your market, and make sure customers don't collude with each other. Sometimes, for big ticket items, contracts even specify that one can't release pricing or performance information. Whether they are enforcable is another matter...
If anybody ever tries to get me to sign such a contract, they will not only lose the sale- they'll find their pricing information all over the internet within 24 hours.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
precision laser arrays? a coiling mechanism that condences water at a constant rate in a non-closed system? integrated motion sensors? this is a very slick piece of equipment, who's complexity is on par, at the very least, with an ultrasound machine or an xray machine. also, i imagine that this thing's resolution is more accurately measured in voxels, rather than pixels.
Where did you get that last? This is a 2D display. Period. It does NOT accept 3D information. Precision laser arrays? Try three lasers (RGB) with mirrors on very fast stepper motors for positioning. Integrated motion sensing is no big deal at all- we've had that for a while on the light projecting keyboards. Though they might be using ultrasound instead- the company I worked for back in 1996 had an ultrasonic chip tray cheap enough for a casino to put in every blackjack table, that would read the stack of chips and give you the value of the tray.
I suspect that this is truly a first foray into the home consumer market- and as such, the price should drop quickly.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.