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3D Display Uses Misted Water

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-an-umbrella dept.

An anonymous reader points out work at the University of Bristol into interactive, 3-D displays created by projecting light on misted water. "These personal screens are both see-through and reach-through. The see-through feature provides direct line of sight of the personal screen and the elements behind it on the tabletop. The reach-through feature allows the user to switch from interacting with the personal screen to reaching through it to interact with the tabletop or the space above it. The personal screen allows a range of customisations and novel interactions such as presenting 2D personal content on the screen, 3D content above the tabletop or supplementing and renewing actual objects differently for each user."

43 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. The Aussies use these as warning signs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For overheight vehicles, Australia uses projected light onto misted water for warning signs. Of course, people still ignore a 20 foot "STOP" sign and end up having a nice can-opener wreck.

    1. Re:The Aussies use these as warning signs... by SammyIAm · · Score: 1

      This sounds really cool. Do you have a video or a picture of one? Or at least maybe a name so that I can Google for them more successfully?

    2. Re:The Aussies use these as warning signs... by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here is one link.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    3. Re:The Aussies use these as warning signs... by SammyIAm · · Score: 1

      Thanks! That IS cool.

    4. Re:The Aussies use these as warning signs... by JasonGoatcher · · Score: 1

      Damnit, I thought I was gonna see a wreck because of a too short bridge. You can Google for that, too.

  2. Seaquest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    This has been done.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-fYOth1DQs/TgW0NwfDr9I/AAAAAAAAHIU/n3DFXR_BJ3c/s1600/hologram93b.jpg

    1. Re:Seaquest by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah, that's the first thing that came to my mind. :-)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Seaquest by modi123 · · Score: 1

      Same here!

      "Luuuuuucas!! Why can't I talk to my dolphin?! "

      I miss Brandis.

    3. Re:Seaquest by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 1

      I can't watch that show any more. If you know why you won't need to ask, if you don't you're better off not knowing.

  3. Why water? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

    And not propylene glycol?

    1. Re:Why water? by gnick · · Score: 1

      Yeah that's why they use it in so many asthma inhalers and electronic cigarette fluids and lots of other things intended to be ingested.

      So that implies that those are non-toxic? Ethyl alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cough syrup, and countless others are meant to be ingested too - But that doesn't imply zero toxicity. Drink a couple of fifths of vodka with a bottle of percoset and tell me in the morning whether those ingestables had any toxicity.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Why water? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Yeah that's why they use it in so many asthma inhalers and electronic cigarette fluids and lots of other things intended to be ingested.

      So that implies that those are non-toxic? Ethyl alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cough syrup, and countless others are meant to be ingested too - But that doesn't imply zero toxicity. Drink a couple of fifths of vodka with a bottle of percoset and tell me in the morning whether those ingestables had any toxicity.

      Don't be stupid. Too much of anything can kill you. Skip the vodka and Percocet and just drink a couple of fifths of water in a short period of time. Let me know how well that works out for you. Hyponatremia can be caused by drinking too much water.

    3. Re:Why water? by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      I'd imagine cost is a factor

  4. Not a volumetric display by Ferrofluid · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was expecting this to be a true volumetric display. Nope. It's just a standard 2D projector projecting images on flat sheets of flowing water droplets.

    1. Re:Not a volumetric display by SammyIAm · · Score: 1

      Yeah, not really so much 3D as it is a 2D display that you can reach through.

  5. Ultrasonic! by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 1

    A few ideas which might synch well with these mist screens:

    http://technicalillusions.com/...

    --
    All rites reversed 2010
  6. How is this news? by scorp1us · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Movies special effects have been projecting images onto mist for at least 2 decades now.

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    1. Re:How is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Also, isn't this part of the plot to practically every episode of Scooby Doo?

    2. Re:How is this news? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      I'd be surprised if they were still doing it within the last two decades. Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd have seen in the Ray Harryhausen era.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:How is this news? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      That and the impressive movie interface isn't necessarily good for normal use.

      The issue with Misted and Movie 3d displays is the normal translucency and clarity. Sure it is nice to see an object in 3d and it can give you some scale... However the real need is to see the detail.

      3D Star Wars style, makes for a good movie, but are you better off talking to a shaky Yoda in blue, but in 3D, or a 2d full color high resolution Yoda.

      I say the real trick for teleconferincing today is to move the camera behind the screen so when you look at the persons eyes on the screen you are looking into the camera so it seem like you do have eye contact.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:How is this news? by scorp1us · · Score: 1

      Any why not everyone just get a Occulus, a webcam and superimpose the 3D model on the webcam image being fed into the occulus?

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      Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
  7. Where have we seen this before? by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Informative

    I sort of feel like I've seen this multiple times on slashdot before:
    http://hardware-beta.slashdot....
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

    Even more hillarious, the first one from 2003 has comments indicating that it, too, is a dupe.

    This may be the mother of all dupes.

    1. Re:Where have we seen this before? by tyme · · Score: 4, Funny

      That last link is memorable for the line "ultra-fine water droplets so small they lack moisture."

      Ah, good times.

      --
      just a ghost in the machine.
    2. Re:Where have we seen this before? by BryanL · · Score: 1

      Homeopathic displays?

    3. Re:Where have we seen this before? by anubi · · Score: 1

      Is this anything like I have seen for years at Disneyland? I guess it was at least ten years ago they used to run a nightly show at the "Rivers of America" area and they would spray all sorts of water into the air and project images into it. It looked similar to the technologies where they were projecting moving faces onto heads in the haunted house.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

  8. LOL ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    The reach-through feature allows the user to switch from interacting with the personal screen to reaching through it to interact with the tabletop or the space above it.

    Right, and god forbid what I want to interact with involves electricity.

    Brilliant, I'll just reach through this veil of mist and unplug this power cord or grab my cell phone.

    Sounds like neat tech, but the whole getting sprayed in order to reach through it seems like something I could live without.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  9. hehe by der_joachim · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sounds great for Steam games!

    (ok, ok, misted water != steam)

    --
    Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
    1. Re:hehe by DeadDecoy · · Score: 2

      It's probably just vaporware.

  10. oh my by itchybrain · · Score: 2

    It is a movie aficionado's wet dream come true

  11. Windows 9 by avandesande · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope they don't force us to use the fog-mist interface on the desktop.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  12. Rick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This will work until the mists begin to kill.

    1. Re:Rick by Ozeroc · · Score: 1

      A Mistborn reference!

      --
      ...
  13. Isn't there a better way to do this? by quietwalker · · Score: 1

    I've seen the various design concepts before and they're all variations on the same intrinsically flawed theme; displays projected on either a liquid or gas that requires very still air, and a very irritating environmental system to manage, not to mention an image that is disrupted when a user 'interacts' with it because it's interrupting the 'canvas'.

    I don't know of any scheme that could avoid these fundamental problems that will stop this from ever being a widely useful, much less consumer level technology.

    I think we're just going to have to stick to visual overlays on 3D space, augmented reality style, at least until we can actually produce the sci-fi concept of projected holograms. Anything less is simply not useful enough.

  14. Holograms or bust by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    Holograms or bust.

  15. Vaporware! by Katatsumuri · · Score: 2

    Okay, mistware.

  16. WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

    Here's your 3D dustbowl.

    It's not like clean, potable water is a limited and in-demand resource for anything more valuable than looking at Minecraft, or architectural renderings of a new home for Larry Ellison.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  17. Isn't this old news? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    I recall seeing this effect in some series from the nineties and earlier in a movie. It's an obvious but not terribly useful technique that we've know of for a couple decades at least. Did I drift onto the "idle" page by accident?

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:Isn't this old news? by Animats · · Score: 1

      Right. Fogscreen does this commercially. With better image quality, too. "Fogscreen" really is a fog screen. Here's Fogscreen in HD video, so you can see the quality of Fogscreen, which is OK for PR but not that great. They do interactivity, too.

      Water screens are available, too. Those things can be huge, hundreds of feet long if desired.

      All these technologies suffer from poor resolution. It's hard to keep a layer of fog smooth and flat. Resolution gets worse further from the nozzles, too.

  18. Nothing new. by azav · · Score: 1

    This approach was shown at the Wired NextFest a decade ago and in South San Francisco around the same time, some company made a device that projected onto a stream of mist, creating a "holographic" display.

    Nothing new to see here.

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  19. Similar commercial product already exists by vonRacic · · Score: 1

    Leia Display System: http://www.leiadisplay.com/

  20. Floating jor-el head, anyone? by jcfigueiredo · · Score: 1

    That's the only application for that that I can think right now. :p

  21. Now I want to pee by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

    Water does that.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  22. Re:Beta Sucks by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

    Thames Valley? Hardly a desert, m'boy! Except culturally. Norman churches. That's still the talk of the town!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."