Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A 3-D Holographic Display

Posted by kdawson on from the you-are-our-only-hope dept.

ZonkerWilliam sends along a link to a Wired writeup on a novel 3-D holographic display developed at USC. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the page. "The process is not simple but can be defined through a few key concepts: Spinning mirrors, high-speed DLP Projections, and very precise math that figures out the correct axial perspective needed for a 360-degree image (even taking into account a viewer's positioning.)"

53 comments

  1. 3D? by tom17 · · Score: 3, Funny

    It doesn't look very 3D in the video to me!

    1. Re:3D? by MiceHead · · Score: 3, Funny

      Me neither. Try using http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/27/1551232 to display the video.

      --
      We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
    2. Re:3D? by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Ahh yes, that's better. Thanks!

    3. Re:3D? by ZonkerWilliam · · Score: 1

      What's the old adage, you can give a man two eyes but you can't make him see in 3D?!?

    4. Re:3D? by morari · · Score: 1

      That's what I thought. Reading the article, they seem to make a big deal out of everyone in the room having the correct point of view for the object. Thus, it kind of looks more like a videogame sprite than a 3D projection.

      --
      "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    5. Re:3D? by steveo777 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I tried the link, but all it did was lead me to this page where some jerk set up a recursive link and now I'm all out of system RAM from all the tabs...

      --
      This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
    6. Re:3D? by BungaDunga · · Score: 1

      Not if you were born without stereoscopic vision. I've two, perfectly functional eyes (on their own) but they don't actually work together enough to produce 3D.

    7. Re:3D? by fastest+fascist · · Score: 1

      That's interesting. I haven't ever heard of such a condition. Are you able to describe how your visual perception works, then? Do you need to keep one eye closed to get a coherent view? Or do the eyes just not provide you with a sense of depth, but still work together well enough to use them at the same time? If it's the latter, I can't begin to imagine what that would be like.

    8. Re:3D? by BungaDunga · · Score: 1

      It's called stereoblindness, I think. One eye is dominant (my right, I think everyone has a dominant eye) and usually I don't see double. Some people get stuck seeing double, especially if they weren't born with it. I can flip between looking through both (seeing double) and looking through (mostly) my right. I still perceive stuff in my left peripheral vision, but everything in front of me is taken over by my right eye. I wear glasses whose only purpose is to bend the light to try to line it up with my wonky eyes, and I think they help a bit. Certainly if I don't wear them for too long I start getting headaches.
      Sometimes babies undergo surgery to fix their eyes if it's obvious they aren't working together. If it's done early enough, they sort of lock in and can see in stereo. At this point, though, I think the medical consensus is that surgery wouldn't actually help me.
      Depth perception is actually remarkably easy to get around without. There are all sorts of monocular cues like perspective and parallax that can help with judging distances. Try walking around with one eye closed. Doors, especially, I imagine look very different to people who can perceive in 3D. They look more like flat parallelograms rather than 3D rectangles to me.

    9. Re:3D? by dmbasso · · Score: 2, Funny

      I see you're one of the 45% that still didn't upgrade Firefox ( http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/27/1458227 ). If you were using Firefox 3, you'd never be out of RAM. They optimized it so well that all the memory leaks got converted into memory sources! I'm with 2^26 tabs opened, and now I have a petabyte of RAM!!!

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    10. Re:3D? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So basically, in a natural world, you would have died once you could not gauge depth to defend yourself from an attacker or save yourself from a potentially life threatening situation or use depth perception to help you acquire sustenance.

      And this would have been a good thing as that bad bad gene mutation would have been removed from the gene pool.

      Oh well, I guess the human race will just go on passing down these awful genetic traits, thus creating a generally genetically deformed race.

      It's a shame, really, we were doing so well.

    11. Re:3D? by ezzzD55J · · Score: 1

      And this would have been a good thing as that bad bad gene mutation would have been removed from the gene pool.

      This is one part wrong, two parts asshole.

    12. Re:3D? by ezzzD55J · · Score: 1
      Indeed, there are rather more depth cues than 'just' stereo - that only works at short range. Other cues are what happens in time, which is why this 'desktop VR' hack works so well:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

      I haven't seen it IRL myself yet, but I sure would like to play with it. And I think that once stereo kicks in (at shorter range), it won't work anymore because you can _see_ the screen is flat.

    13. Re:3D? by ZonkerWilliam · · Score: 1

      So is Hitler your roll model? or are you just incredibly ignorant?

    14. Re:3D? by MirrorGeek · · Score: 1

      Technically it's called an autostereoscopic volumetric display. There was a lot of very similar patent activity on this in the early - mid 1990's.

  2. Just like the holodeck by Emb3rz · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can't put your hand through the image and disrupt it!

    More accurately, if you try, your hand is likely to be destroyed by the mirror spinning at very high speeds. It's sort of like a force field...

    1. Re:Just like the holodeck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Or a lawnmower blade.

    2. Re:Just like the holodeck by kiehlster · · Score: 1

      You can't put your hand through the image

      But it's just like Star Trek! Only, when you put your hand through, it is decomposed like a transporter, then digitally imaged by the hologram, and finally recomposed out the other side. Then there's no image field distortion.

    3. Re:Just like the holodeck by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Crap, the safeties got shut off again. And of course it's running that stupid black and white program Tom and Harry are always fooling around in.

  3. seen it by Iceykitsune · · Score: -1, Redundant

    recommended tag: oldnews

    --
    GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
    1. Re:seen it by kramulous · · Score: 1

      Agreed .... very, very old news. I saw one of these things working about 8 years ago.

      --
      .
    2. Re:seen it by Workaphobia · · Score: 1

      Same here, although it was only three years ago for me. A neat device if you have forty thousand dollars to waste.

      --
      Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
  4. Wow, I actually RTFA by DRAGONWEEZEL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seems not new to me, but the idea of it in greyscale might be useful in medical applications if you could take a 3d Image, and manipulate it, however, seems gimicky to me. We do pretty well w/ two monitors and a pair of butter knives.

    --
    How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
  5. Tagged !holographic by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it projects an image over a solid object (that can crush your hand if you touch it, btw), it's definitely NOT holographic.

    1. Re:Tagged !holographic by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      If you RTFA you'd see that the thing that is spinning, is a hologram.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
  6. 404 File Not Found by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The requested URL (hardware/08/06/27/1551232.shtml) was not found.

    Wow, that's beyond vaporware.

  7. Putting the "new" in news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the page.

    I think I did when it was put on youtube like 10 months ago...

  8. great job dawson by X0563511 · · Score: -1, Troll

    I like how I tried to submit this earlier, and found it already in the firehose, pointing to the actual projects page... and along comes kdawson and just tosses this one up feeding ad-revenue to wired.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    1. Re:great job dawson by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      All power corrupts, my friend. Even on Slashdot.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    2. Re:great job dawson by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 1

      That's a very loose definition of corrupt. It must be a total pain in the ass to have such ridiculously high moral standards about something so meaningless.

    3. Re:great job dawson by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Morality is subjective, as is "meaningless", friend.

      That aside, wouldn't it be nice to have relevant links to project pages directly responsible for the cool technology Slashdot is giving press to? Instead of a cookie-cutter article from a large news corp. that obviously is profiting off of a slashdotting?

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    4. Re:great job dawson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, bury it for "troll". You might want to go learn what "troll" means before you toss it at someone.

      Flamebait maybe, but it's truth. You just don't like it.

    5. Re:great job dawson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Slashdot make a profit too.

      If there is advertising on the page linked to, then Slashdot can get 'referrer revenue'.

    6. Re:great job dawson by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Exactly. And even if they don't "officially" get revenue from something like that, there's always 'under the table'. Slashdot has a very valuable website, and there's no question that other companies would love to have a featured story linking to their website.

      Not to say this is the truth, but it's definitely not out of the picture.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    7. Re:great job dawson by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 1

      Morality is indeed subjective, but the definition of corrupt is not. Sort of like evil.

      Watering down the terms serves nothing.

  9. Illusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bah! Its all smoke and mirrors. Well minus the smoke.

    1. Re:Illusion by camperdave · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bah! Its all smoke and mirrors. Well minus the smoke.

      In a sense it is. What they have is a projector shining onto a mirror. When the mirror is facing the north, they display the north image. When it is facing south, they display the south image. When it is facing 32 degrees, they display the appropriate image. They divide the horizontal plane into 288 1.25 degree segments and display the appropriate image to each segment. Chances are that your eyes, being in the horizontal plane, will be in two separate segments. They will each receive the image appropriate for the segment they are in. Your brain will merge the two images together to form a 3D image. If you are too far away, your eyes will be in the same segment, and will receive the same image, and the 3D illusion will collapse.

      There is also no true vertical paralax with this system. You could move left or right to see behind an object, but you could not move up or down to see behind an object. Yes, the article says that that you can, but that is somewhat misleading. In order to get vertical paralax, they must track the location of the viewer and alter the image accordingly. Everybody viewing the image would see the same vertical aspect of the image. They do have the ability to track multiple viewers' vertical position, so the person to the north could see a different vertical perspective than the person to the south, but two people at close horizontal angles would see the same vertical aspect.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  10. Ten MONTHS old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    From the YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKCUGQ-uo8c): "Added: August 31, 2007"

    Good to see Slashdot is up to date and timely as always...

    For much more detail and higher-res video / images, go to:

    http://gl.ict.usc.edu/Research/3DDisplay/

    1. Re:Ten MONTHS old by Workaphobia · · Score: 1

      Much, much older than that actually. See the other comments remarking on its age.

      --
      Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
  11. Old News by What+Is+Dot · · Score: 1

    I saw this in person at the 2006 SIGGRAPH convocation in Boston. While it was an interesting device, it has been around a while. The device is sensitive to distortion if the mirror is not spinning at just the right speed, if the projector is off axis or if the projector refresh timing is off. It's a neat toy, but not the way to go if you are looking for precision in graphics. Too many moving parts; too many timing issues.

  12. Very Old News a Year Old by llZENll · · Score: 1

    http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/31/researchers-develop-a-360-degree-holographic-display/

  13. suspicious technology... by Tumbleweed · · Score: 1

    A spinning mirror? You could use that to vaporize a human target from space.

    And the big concern with this technology is: make sure to keep your optics clean.

    This has been a public service announcement from Real Genius Consulting, Inc.

  14. Little taste of 3D by Tofof · · Score: 2, Informative

    The image in the middle of the article, with two pairs of TIE fighter images side by side appears to actually be two stereoscopic pairs, arranged for cross-eyed viewing.

    I didn't find a caption or any other explanation, but give it a try. The video is great at showing how real the object seems from a rotational perspective, but viewing the still-frame of the TIE in 3D really drove it home for me.

    If none of that makes any sense, try google's help.

  15. Actually it is used by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Actually there are company producing spinning mirror based holographic display (called volumetric display) that are used to display medical images.

    Stereo3D has some references to these kind of companies.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  16. This is nothing new by EkriirkE · · Score: 1

    I remember seeing something like this on the discovery channel in the early/mid 90's. It was a helical white corkscrew that spun really fast and had lasers/projector light up a spot on the corkscrew when it reached the appropriate Y-position at constant X/Z positions to make a 3D image.

    --
    from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
  17. That link works, but one of the links it goes to by DRAGONWEEZEL · · Score: 1

    is defunct, and the other is blocked by websense as a "social Networking" site!

    I've no Idea how I got modded up.

    The butter knives part of that comment comes from the instructions for "Descent", where they show you how to make your monitor split the signal, and use butter knives or mirrors on each side and align them till the ships "PoP".

    It was difficult, and I could never get the butter knives to stay in the right spot for long, but the effect was cool when it worked!

    --
    How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
  18. *YAWN* by Usquebaugh · · Score: 1

    Yet Another Whirling Nut

    This is a swept volume display, look up volumetric displays.

    It's been done before and is certainly nothing new.

    Much as I want my R2D2/StarTrek/RedDwarf holograms it will take a leap forward in our understanding and control of photons.

    1. Re:*YAWN* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean like a photon torpedo, am I right Worf?

    2. Re:*YAWN* by Nazlfrag · · Score: 1

      Or perhaps just more research into atmospheric plasma like this: Three Dimensional Images in the Air, video.

  19. At last by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We now have the technology display the secret Death Star plans

  20. Re:Not YAWN by IdeaMan · · Score: 1

    Actually it's not a swept volume display.

    They used a type of mirror, not a diffuse plane. This should allow them to display images that appear to be in front of or behind the volume described by the mirror. Unfortunately they did not demonstrate this capability.

    At first when I watched the video I thought they had managed to do not just the horizontal but the vertical axis. However I was wrong, they cheated in that they are tracking the location of the viewer to do up and down. I think with the appropriate reflector and more projectors they should be able to get a few fields of up and down.

    The next step is to do this with staggered strip columns (flat rectangular strips with the back non-reflective). This should allow home theater sized 3d w/o glasses however you'd lose the ability to view it from behind.

    As far as R2D2 is concerned, a holograph projector is pretty much that level of technology. Not sure if we can do that digitally yet or not.

    --
    They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
  21. talking 3D anyone heard of anaglyphic compiz? by spandex_panda · · Score: 1

    This is cool, if only I had a pair of green and red (anaglyphic) glasses I could have my 3d desktop cube and wobbly windows and AWN pop out of the screen at me! Now that is cool!

    --
    like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
  22. Link by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Actuality Medical product page, with the display.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]