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A Big Step Forward In Air Display and Interface Tech
wjcofkc writes "Interactive displays projected into the air in the spirit of Iron Man have been heralded as the next step in visual technology. Yet many obstacles remain. According to Russian designer Max Kamanin, creator of Displair, many the problems have now been largely cracked. With this attempt at refining the technology, the image is created inside a layer of dry fog which is composed of ultra-fine water droplets so small they lack moisture. Three-dimensional projections are then created using infrared sensors. The projected screen currently responds intuitively to 1,500 hand movements, many of which are similar to those used on mobile devices, such as pinch and zoom. The most immediate applications include advertising and medicine, with the latter offering a more hygienic alternative to touchscreens. The most immediate objection from home and office computer users is that they don't want to be waving their hands around all day, and while such questions as 'What happens when I turn on a fan?' are not answered here, just imagine a future with a projected keyboard and trackpad that use puff-air haptic feedback with the option of reaching right into the screen whenever it applies to the application at hand — and applications that take advantage of such a technology would no doubt come along. Better yet, imagine for yourself in the comments. As always, pictures speak a thousand words, so don't neglect the articles gallery."
...many the problems have now been largely cracked...
I think you accidentally a word there.
Today's problems are tomorrows answers.
This might be a question that is good to ask before petri dishes are deployed to hospitals... That and is there a performance difference between humid Houston, and dry as dust Phoenix?
Seems like the obvious application.
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...as described in a summary so concise it lacks sense.
The porn industry will be at the forefront of this technology.
Having said that, really, it will be Google and the *rest* of the targeted advertising industry whores that will be pushing this technology, it will *not* be for the "benefit of mankind", it will be a "delivery system" for paid content.
And, it will be yet another way to exit reality and live in an imaginary world - in your mom's basement
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What's that? Something on another site? Or something I missed?
You think touchscreens are bad for haptic feedback? What happens when you don't even get the impact against the screen as feedback that you've actually pressed something?
I'll answer my own question - this is focused on data consumption, not data production, to an even greater degree than touchscreens are; or for situations where an alternative input method will be used (voice, perhaps? I can't envision a mouse+keyboard being used with this)
There are niches for this, obviously, but I definitely don't think it's going to significantly displace existing display tech. It will more be used where current tech cannot.
Is it just me, or does it seem pointless to put more technology into an interface than can come from whatever is interfaced with?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
It sounds like a clumsy and problem-prone technology to me, and I predict it won't get past the proof-of-concept stage of development.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If many of the problems have been solved, why do the pictures in the gallery look like burry 2D with dim output in a dark room?
"With this attempt at refining the technology, the image is created inside a layer of dry fog which is composed of ultra-fine water droplets so small they lack moisture."
Say WHAT?
Projection onto streams of water is well known. Here are some examples. It's used to create big-screen effects outdoors, usually for PR purposes. You usually get big, but fuzzy, images, because the water screen isn't flat enough. Huge light levels are required, so it takes expensive projectors. Indoors, I've seen it done in a doorway, and you could walk through the image, getting slightly wet.
Until somebody figures out how to make a curtain of mist/water/some gas or liquid stay very flat, this isn't going to be more than an advertising gimmick.
Smoke and mirrors?
This is very similar to projecting onto Haze which most AV techs in the theater industry have already been doing for years.
For the others, Haze is like fog from a smoke machine but its ultra-fine mist and allows light beams to show up more clearly you can use a "good" theater grade projector to project onto the surface the mist creates making an image appear to be floating without a screen but the image is blurry and you cannot see much fine detail, their have been many many attempts to improve this over the years and some have succeeded but not much a 3K+ lumin projector helps but the image still isn't sharp you can also use multiple projection points to create a 3d like object, but a gust of wind or a sudden change in air temperature disturbs the image making it blurry, even sitting to close and breathing near the image makes it fail as a display device.
It may have some uses, maybe gaming, but there's a reason people have commonly used a mouse and keyboard for decades - They alloe you to exert little energy so you can use them for prolonged periods of time without getting weary.
"The projected screen currently responds intuitively to 1,500 hand movements"
Yes, how 'intuitive' for the user...
How exactly is anybody supposed to remember 1,500 hand movements?
NOTHING will ever replace the keyboard and mouse. Why is this nonsense even being funded? These idiots have no idea about user interface design, but then, neither does ALL of Microsoft's 'User Experience' team. (LOL)
Laminar flow fog displays have been around for literally decades. Every other year, a company will out their 'WOW Revolutionary!' desktop fog display with mid-air 'touch' sensing, then disappear after nobody buys it. I've yet to see anyone actually buy one of the things from the many start-ups that have produced them. This one in particular appears to have nothing to separate it from the string of flops before it.
Additionally, they are not in any way 3D. They aren't volumetric, there's no holography going on, you can;t stack them for interferometric displays, you can't even polarise their output. You could use a high framerate projector and shutter-glasses, but you're still stuck with all the limits of single-viewpoint stereography.
The problems to be solved to bring one of these to market aren't technical. Those were solved years ago. The problem to be solved is finding somebody who actually wants one.
Perfect for the unwashed masses Most young people cannot write cursive Cannot spell Most can't add or multiply numbers Can't write a coherent sentence All is left is to learn gorilla/chimpanzee talk On dates all they do is text on their cell phones Pretty soon they should reach the intelligence of monkeys This display will be useful for them UH Uh ,,, eh eh
Looks very similar to these fellows products: http://www.fogscreen.com/
This looks exactly like that which was developed down the hall from my office ten years ago. IO2 Technologies. They still have a web site so I think they are still in business. I don't see much different in the technology.
The real tech to display 3d image in mid-air is this:
http://phys.org/news11251.html
I hope it smells a bit weird
Let's face it. It's a shit idea. Ironman didn't wave his arm around a misty screen, that's just not sexy. Next idea please.
When I started working for an imaging lab in a midwest medical institution in 1984, we were exploring the utility of a vibrating mirror display, which provided a real 3D image (you could move your head to see behind things). Part of my work involved support software for point, line and plane cursors to segment and refine the image. The cursors were driven by a freespace mouse (we called it a "bat") which you held in one hand. Given poor response times, it was difficult to control the device for more than a few minutes with your hand in the air, especially as you waited for the cursor to catch up with your movement. Modern technology could eliminate the slow response, but keeping a hand motionless in the air for extended periods can be a problem.
This kind of reminds me of the display screen in the captain's quarters with the head of Professor Martenson on the Martenson Screen. I always knew there was a purpose behind all of that mist.
Fifteen hundred hand gestures? Nice for stenographers and Noh actors, I suppose.