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Real-Time Holograms Beam Closer To Reality
sciencehabit writes "It's not quite the flickering blue projection of Princess Leia begging, 'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!' from the classic sci-fi movie Star Wars, but holographic projection has just beamed a bit closer to reality. Researchers in Arizona have devised a novel plastic film that can be used to generate holographic 3D images sent electronically from one location to another. The technology opens the door for everything from holographic surgery to movies that literally surround the viewer."
The goal with that wouldn't be for you to take it all in, the focus would still be at singular points, or on an overall scene. The goal would be the feeling of complete immersion in the movie, which would be *amazing*.
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How's a hologram going to take my appendix out?
Oh...
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I wonder if this technology can help further holographic storage. Holographic storage has been hovering at the edges for a while now, and maybe this might be the impetus that drives this mainstream.
Of course, it wouldn't be memristor fast, nor compete with SSDS, but as a medium to replace tapes or WORM optical storage for low speed, high capacity, it would be ideal, assuming the archival life of bits stored in 3D is up to par.
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So this thing updates every 2 seconds [with a 100x one in the works]... compared to typical games running at 30-60 times per second? But another interesting question-- exclusive of processing power, is the refresh rate limited by size, or can it scale up pretty much indefinitely?...and CAN it be large? The image makes it look like it's difficult to maintain.
Why on earth would I want that? I have a hard enough time taking everything in with 3D movies!
just think of the gaming possibilities...talk about a first person shooter!
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5 years. It's always 5 years away. Has been that way ever since I can remember.
Keep saving for the Holodeck. It's good for the economy (I guess).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sort of interesting, but the video doesn't really show the image being updated - it just goes from a blank bit of plastic to one with the hologram etched inside. The article also doesn't really make it clear if the same bit of plastic can be re-used fro the next image, which it seems would be a requirement to show video; if that's the case, why don't they show the image being changed? It's great that they can make the image in 2.15 seconds, but how long does it take to erase and write the next one?
Think of Avatar, but as a video game (you don't watch the protagonist, you are the protagonist). That's where games are heading and will overtake movies. The holodeck.
Holograms aren't about walking around the image (although they can be), they're about true 3D; 3D that uses all the visual cues for depth rather than just one (or 2D plus one more cue).
Today's 3D movies aren't really 3D, they're stereoscopes. Your right eye sees a slightly different image than your left eye, and your brain combines them.
With a hologram, if your eye focuses on something close in the image, things farther away blur, and if your eye focuses on something farther away the foreground blurs. With stereoscopy, the camera does all the focusing, which is why some people get eyestrain with it -- the parallax tells the brain an object is s certain distance away, while its focusing tells the brain it's a different distance.
But as I said, TFA wasn't clear whether or not it's a true hologram, as it mentioned several cameras arrayed aroud the subject. With a hologram, you have one camera and two lasers.
I wish I could find a more technical FA about this, it looks fascinating.
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So what? They've had this on CNN for at least 2 years now.
And man, it's made their news reporting so much better.
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We see things because light either comes from, through or bounces off of the things we see. The problem with our concept of projected holograms is that we need to get the light to do something special in the air. Either we cause light to be generated in the air or somehow cause a reaction with particles in the air at specified points. Projecting onto mist and smoke in the air has been successful. We know how to bounce things off of solid objects, even when those solid objects are in the form of tiny particles.
So just as most people are WAY off in thinking that we can make lightsabers and blasters with laser beams, most are way off in thinking we can project light beams to create a hologram.
It may never be possible until we start working out how we can teleport antimatter streams into patterns into 3D spaces occupied by existing matter. A matter+antimatter reaction in tiny amounts in air just might create the points of light needed to create holographic images in the air. Even that would not be sustainable for a video stream, I fear, as all sorts of things are likely to go awry while antimatter reacts with the matter particles in the air.
Projecting light onto a plastic film is a LONG way from creating a hologram in the air and it is probably moving in the wrong direction even to try.
True that. Plus, I'd imagine watching this would provide even more headaches/accessibility problems than dear old 3D does now...so it'll probably be relegated to a niche market.
That being said, way back when not many people expected this whole 'home computing' thing to take off, either...so who knows? If only my time machine weren't on the fritz again...and me fresh out of flux capacitors, too!
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No, it's better for the economy if he buys a 3D TV now. Followed by a "Real 3D" TV tomorrow, and a "Full 3D" after that. Or however they'll call the next few standards for 3D TV.
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Perhaps I am missing something, but this technology doesn't seem like a holograph at all. It seems like it's a dynamic hologram.
A holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears.
When I think holograph, I think about a three-dimensional figure of light being projected onto a table top.
That's a special effect you see in movies. It's not real, and there's no real theory for how such a thing could even be made. Dismissing this real, working technology because it doesn't look like a Hollywood "hologram" is like dismissing a laser-powered rifle because it doesn't shoot a solid, brightly colored chunk of light that flies across the room like in Star Wars.
(Sorry, I'm closely related to a pioneer in holography and worked in the field for several years, so I can be pedantic about it sometimes.)
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Thank you summary, I was unaware of where that quote came from. It is only due to your diligence that I am now informed of that piece of movie trivia.
That's a special effect you see in movies. It's not real, and there's no real theory for how such a thing could even be made.
You might want to see the AIST free space plasma display, as a theory on how such a thing could be made...
This is a common misconception about holograms which has come about because of movie special effects.
A real hologram can show the illusion of something floating in front of you, but only so long as your gaze is directed *at* the hologram. Thus, a hologram "picture" hanging on the wall can only show an object while you're looking at the picture, but direct your gaze to the wall left or right and you see the wall. You can see a little bit around the object, but you can't walk around and see behind it because then you would be looking away from the hologram.
For a complete 3-d image you need a "band" of hologram that goes all around the room. Now, wherever you look you are looking into the hologram, and will see the image at the corresponding angle. The requirement to be looking at the hologram is still there - you can't look down through the object to the floor.
If the hologram covered every surface of the room you could have a the illusion of a complete 3-d representation of an object. In this case you could walk around it and view it from any angle, including from below and from above.
However, if another person were in the room with you, you could not see the object if they were between you and the wall. If they are opposite the image from you then you will see them, not the object. If you and they are at 90 degrees to the object, then you can see the object... but you can only walk around it to the point where the other person obscures your view of the wall.
Holograms don't cause light to change direction in mid air. It's just an optical effect that 'kinda reverses the focus in a way that tricks your eyes into thinking there's an object there.