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3D Animations In Mid-Air Using Plasma Balls
An anonymous reader clues us to research at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology that has produced the ability to make animations by creating small plasma balls in mid-air. The technology doesn't use vapor or strange gases, just lasers to heat up oxygen and nitrogen molecules above the device: up to 1,000 brilliant dots per second, which makes smooth motion possible. When the tech improves it could be used for street signs or advertising.
I, for one, welcome our new lethally hot gas based advertisement overlords...
I'm not clicking that link.
Till the new nike or coke ad hits a planes and lights it on fire!
~
Here's the press release it links to. Sadly both the article and the press release are from February 2006...
Indeed!
It uses high power lasers to heat the air into a "plasma" when running it has the sounds of crackles as mini explosions occur.
Oh yeah, that's a display I want. Instead of the cat blocking the screen, the cat bursts into flames. How the heck am I going to explain that one to the wife?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yea, I saw this, like, a year ago. It took all of 2 seconds to scroll down and find a date going back over a year and a half ago.
/. news breaks you!
Time for my first ever usage of ye ol' russian joke: On
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Hah, who sees an amazing technology like this and immediately begins thinking about its potential use for advertising? To me, its use in advertising seems like the only downside to this technology..
"Guys!! I just heard that they came up with a way to project images directly in to your brain! Awesome, think of the *commercials*!! "
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
While it's at least mildly interesting I had a real problem with one of the linked sources. Not the linked source itself but the obviously photoshopped cruise liner.
What the hell is that all about? I know that it may be able to swing this in the future but let's not get out of hand. Not to mention that my 12 year old nephew is a better photoshop hacker.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
So am I finally going to be able to play holo-chess against a wookie?
So a giant holo-shark appearing in the air abouve you and then twisting above you and closing its jaws right on you can be created in the air with lasers? I need a Delorean and a 1955 sports almanac. Also I am going to a corner drug store to get some plutonium unless Mr. Fusion is in business already.
You can't handle the truth.
Forget it, that's not the early adopters.
It'll be used for video games and pr0n. We all know who gets tech first. The problem I see is that it heats up they air to the point that when you get too excited and attempt to touch... You loose a hand or other appendage.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Make me a portable version of this and I can finally have my friken LIGHTSABER!
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
As much as I like the idea of being assailed with even more ads everywhere I look, this seems to be a very environmentally harmful idea. Along with harmful gases being produced by plasma discharges, it would be noisy as well, not to mention that displays like this would give off UV light as well, just like an electric arc. Bad idea.
It seems that the light is coming from the plasma, not the laser, so changing colors might not work. Also, you have to have one laser per pixel. I'd imagine to have two balls, one directly above another, you'd have to be able to tilt another laser to focus its beam at that location (if that makes any sense)
Also - the current display can make 1000 balls? meh. That's a 10px x 10px x 10px display. It's awesome, sure, but the photoshop jobs they're showing are a LONG way off; right now we're looking more at led scroller type displays.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Well, first, this is sadly old news. The technology was actually exhibited at SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston last July. It's pretty cool, but I'm not sure it would ever be put to practical use, at least in its current form.
For one thing, it's loud! Every plasma ball makes a sizzling pop as it winks in and out of existence. Now magnify that by thousands of times as it scans out a 3D wireframe... the entire area for quite a distance surrounding fills with an ear-splitting sound of angry electric bees. There was talk of putting it on buildings to run electronic billboards in cities, but anyone within a few blocks would need ear protection to co-exist with it!
Very cool stuff, but we're a loooong way from 3D open-air advertising.
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If my memory serves (and this is not my area of expertise), eye protection is standard operating procedure for anything that could be considered a high-power laser. This is sort of like when they use tethers for testing things that go above the ground. It is a "safety" precaution required more by insurance companies than reality. (Such as when testing a new elevator design, a "home-built" helicopter that has already passed the FAA inspections for the current phase, etc.)
I suspect that these people are smart enough not to look directly into the lasers. The eye protection is as much a reminder to others that you need to wear eye protection when working with lasers and a requirement from the insurance company as it is realistic protection.
Again, the eye protection works, but I sincerely doubt that these people are dumb enough to look into the lasers.
This is like the guy on "New Yankee Workshop" who always gives his 30+ spiel on wearing safety glasses and following all instructions in the manual. Anyone who does that much woodworking with those kinds of power tools (huge bench-based units) should already know that stuff, but for reasons that I suspect include liability concerns Mr. Abrams reminds us every week to wear our safety glasses.
-Q
There's video of the projector in action here
http://youtube.com/watch?v=He2QTpelAjE
...plasma balls in mid-air is one of the things needed for a fusion reactor.
The game.
When you heat up an oxygen-nitrogen gas mix to those temperatures, you will get nitrous oxide and ozone. This is not just a problem with cool little sparky devices. Hydrogen-oxygen fuel systems (think: Saturn V) may produce only water vapor, but at such a high temperature from the exhaust, the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere does its thing and... nothing you'd want to breathe.
And ozone, while very nice for blocking UV rays, is a carcinogen when inhaled.
THE WORLD WILL KILL YOU! film at eleven, Jim Cummings narration.
That being said, I'd certainly love to see a demo. If they can somehow deal with the ozone/NO2 hazard, this could be a blast. "Help me, Obi-Wan, you're my only hope"
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Yeah, let's ionize the air in a column!
Growing up in a mosquito infested area, I often thought that someday, an anti-mosquito laser system could be developed.
This technology could possibly do that. If it can focus a laser on a particular spot long enough to make plasma out of air, it can zap a skeeter!
And you thought a bug-zapper was entertaining...
Come on, 640 brilliant dots per second should be enough for anybody!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=He2QTpelAjE
:)
Kind of hard to see what they're doing at first, you might think it's just projected onto the wall, but then the camera pans around and you now see the lights against an open window. Yup, 3D. About at the level of pong right now, monochromatic voxels doing simple stuff, but you can easily extrapolate where they're going to go with it. Return of the Jedi Death Star display within 10 years? I think so.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
not going to happen... they'd rather use the tech to pound you with advertising than actually doing something useful.
Can you imagine the crazy pyrotechnics that could be achieved with this sort of thing?
:P
Heh... it would be fun to take one of these things and set it up near a village of primitives. You could be the face of God
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If we don't actively track and kill mosquitoes with laser beams, then the terrorists have won
The propane tank is used to generate CO2 (queue global warming rants here). Mosquitos are attracted to CO2 because that is how they locate their prey. When they fly close enough, then the vacuum cleaner comes into play. Zapping them is no good because they don't like ozone (so the plasma ball suggested elsewhere would not attract mosquitos - it would kill lots of moths, however). To be effective in protecting your event, the CO2 generator needs to be upwind. Mosquitos follow CO2 plumes upwind toward their victims using biotech similar to lobsters (compare the concentration detected between two antenna and turn toward the stronger, the greater the difference, the greater the adjustment - simple and effective). Those downwind of the BBQ will likely head toward that instead, so put the BBQ off to one side relative to the breeze.
I like the way you think.
But what we really need is a way to control mosquitos so that they can swarm to form advertisements. Then we'd get the laser bug zapper for free.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
And space is one of the things needed for a space elevator!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Eye protection is required for high power lasers because depending on the power (and wavelength) even diffuse (non-specular) reflections off a surface can be hazardous.
They are also important since it is possible the beam path could suddenly change from a bumped mirror or malfunctioning controller and present the beam to an eye. You couldn't close your eyes fast enough to prevent damage with a high power laser (high enough power and the eye lid won't even help obviously).
The pain in the ass thing about laser goggles is that they make the laser you are working with invisible (if it isn't already a non-visible wavelength). Imagine if the shop glasses on the New Yankee Workshop rendered all the sharp spinning metal items non-visible - wouldn't that be a fun shop to work in?
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I always wanted to make one of these! Passive sonar to locate the bug, and then a laser tracking system to set the little bugger on fire. :) Never got past the safety aspect though - I mean, we're talking about using a laser strong enough to punch a hole in a mozzie, being aimed around the room and fired by a system that could well just decide based on a strange echo to pop you in the eye. I'll take itchy over permanent blindness, tyvm. :/
;)
Other ideas were the same tracking system attached to a nerf gun, an automated micro-water-jet system (think an archer fish), or even something funky with focussed sound waves and constructive interference.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
And you could initiate mating festivals by playing pr0n. Pr0n from the heavens! You know you like it..
hmm... Another thing that might work could be to have multiple sources for the energy.. (i'm no laser expert :)
:)
But my idea, have a system with maybe 20-30 lasers that all focus their low-power beams on a single point. 10x20mW lasers should(?) have a total effect of 200mW, but ofcourse if you hit different parts of the bug it will probably not have any effect on the bug itself... Maybe put 10 lasers in a row instead of all around the room could make it a bit easier to hit the same spot, but then again, if the system thought your eye where a mosquito...