A Kinect Princess Leia Hologram In Realtime

mikejuk writes with this snippet from I, Programmer: "True 3D realtime holography is not only possible — it makes use of a Kinect as its input device. A team at MIT has recreated the famous 3D Princess Leia scene from the original Star Wars — but as a live video feed! It's a great stunt but don't miss the importance — this is realtime 3D holography and that means you can view it without any glasses or other gadgets and you can move around and see behind objects in the scene. This is more than the flat 3D you get in movies."

Comments

Re:Soooo

[Daniel Franklin]

The first 2D electronic television displays had similar levels of performance. This is a tremendous achievement. If you want proper 3D - sans glasses - this is almost certainly how it will happen.

Re:"real holography"

[sznupi]

What those people are doing is certainly "real holography" (not captured too well, the cameraman should move more)

It's just that obstacles are huge (to the point of being quite counterintuitive) - apparently, for a really good holography, you need a display with pixels smaller than a wavelength of light (coupled with memory and processing we're nowhere near yet)

But once we're there... oh boy. A display can look basically like a window. Much better than the gimmick of stereoscopy.

(some quick details)

Fake 3D ftw

[Twinbee]

I know people will hate me for saying this, but in a way, it's better if everyone sees practically the same movie. If we're all seeing slightly different views, then we won't all have quite the same experience. I think there's something to be said for having a particular view of the scene intended by the director.

Re:Fake 3D ftw

[green1]

except plays and concerts and live performances usually do their best to simulate 2D in their inherently 3D environment, there's a reason the audience all sits on the same side of the performers and looks at them all from the "front" if 3D were really superior, we'd want to be sitting surrounding the performers, not all on the same side of them.

In your example of the couple kissing while one holds a knife behind their back, on a 2D movie screen we'd get just the perfect angle and timing to see both at just the right moments, on a 3D stage the actors usually do their best to replicate such by turning to intentionally show off the aspects they wish to portray, in contrast to movies the resulting motion, while necessary, often creates a somewhat "fake" feel to the acting which isn't necessary in the 2D plane of movies where the camera can take more genuine acting, and interpret it by moving the viewer instead.

Don't get me wrong, I love going to the theatre and watching real shows, there's an ambience you just can't get on a movie screen. But it's not for the 3D aspect of it. You get a better vantage point for most scenes on a properly shot and directed film than you can on any theatre stage.

Realtime?

[Baseclass]

What's the point of wasting CPU and bandwidth on real time?
Perhaps their demonstration would be more impressive if they focused on actually generating a passable pre-rendered video first.

Re:meh

[Sparx139]

Yes, but it's a proof of concept. Keep in mind that this is using off-the-shelf hardware. If someone picks this up and starts to work with it, then it's only going to get better with time. I'd imagine the first televisions would be similarly "not any good", and then think back when telegrams were the only way to communicate with others. Give it time.

Re:Bah

[Zelgadiss]

I'm getting kind of sick of Kinect "related" news.

It's nothing more than a low res 3D camera - with fairly limited accuracy.