HoloVizio 3D, Holodeck 1.0 to Some, Makes Its Debut

TaeKwonDood writes to tell us that another step towards Star Trek's Holodeck technology has been taken with the advent of HoloVizio 3D. Allowing users to see and manipulate objects in 3D without the assistance of goggles, this distributed system shows a lot of promise. "The HoloVizio is a 3-D screen that will allow designers to visualize true 3-D models of cars, engines or components. Better yet, gesture recognition means that observers can manipulate the models by waving their hands in front of the screen. The function offers enormous scope for collaboration across the globe."

models!

[by Anonymous Coward]

The HoloVizio is a 3-D screen that will allow designers to visualize true 3-D models

I'd like to order up one Cindy Crawford, one of the brunette woman from the Mercury ads, and one of that hot chick in Accounting.

of cars, engines or components.

Oh.

Re:models!

[Red Alastor (742410)]

I always thought that holodecks probably weren't used to talk to historical figures and characters from novels written in the 20th century. Cleaning the holodeck must be the suckiest job on the Enterprise.

Re:models!

[Dice (109560)]

Damnit, Barclay!! Again?!

Come!

[MrSteveSD (801820)]

No jokes about Captain Picard saying "Come!". Okay? :)

OK.

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Make it so baby. Uh yeah. Right there baby. Engage ENGAAAGGGE.

Wiimote + Lightsabers!

[StCredZero (169093)]

Heck with all that Star Trek sex rubbish! The true geek-gasm these things should give you is the potential for the Ultimate Star Wars Lightsaber game! Construct something like the Wiimote controller, but with lightsaber designs from the Star Wars movies. Throw in some gesture recognition for some force powers, and you have the ultimate geek game. Imagine it -- immersive 3D effects with physics, you holding a lightsaber, or gesturing to telekinetically deflect objects.

Dave & Busters would make a killing on those! I wonder how many Jedi would show up in costume robes?

Nah..

[vecctor (935163)]

I'm sure it featured some sort of automated fluid capture and disposal. It did use forcefields for everything, after all.

If the first one didn't feature that, you can sure bet version 2.0 did!

Isn't it just a multitouch flat panel?

[PC and Sony Fanboy (1248258)]

Well, this looks interesting, but isn't it just a multitouch 3D flat panel? .. sure, you don't touch the screen directly, but it doesn't seem to be projecting anything.

Also, it sounds kinda lame...

CRS4 also developed rendering and visualisation software that may reveal the artistic secrets of the great masters, like Michelangelo. A scan of his famous David revealed that the eyes diverge.

You can see the same effects if you look at a picture taken from the right angle. It isn't revolutionary, it sounds an awful lot like an awful lot of hype!

Re:Isn't it just a multitouch flat panel?

[mikael (484)]

Depends upon the way the system is working. Does it track the position of a single person and adjusts the view accordingly? Or are there multiple GPU's rendering the scene from different angles and having these different views projected in different directions using vertically aligned lenses? In the latter case, projecting a view "outwards" should be possible. It certainly looks the case in the gears video [scientificblogging.com]

I wonder if this technology would scale into a laptop display?

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it looks like it's just head tracking. Johnny Chung Lee already did that with the Wii. (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/) Sure, I bet it looks pretty good compared to fixed-perspective displays, but there's no holo-anything involved at all.

Re:Isn't it just a multitouch flat panel?

[Minigun_Fiend (909620)]

It says on the product website that it can track people individually and simultaneously, and that it doesn't use any kind of motion/head tracking. "# No positioning or head tracking applied # Spatial points are addressed individually" (http://www.holografika.com/)

Re:

[Prune (557140)]

It's not headtracking. One look at their website would have made that obvious: http://holografika.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=63 [holografika.com]

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[tambo (310170)]

Well, this looks interesting, but isn't it just a multitouch 3D flat panel? .. sure, you don't touch the screen directly, but it doesn't seem to be projecting anything.

There's that, yes.

There's also the fact that this is still just a monitor, which projects images. The Holodeck, on the other hand, didn't generate images of any kind - it created fully materialized objects - including people! - and also created light sources, blah blah blah.

Holodeck, my ass. This is just another stupid monitor. C'mon, people,

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

It's quite weird how unenthusiastic people here are. I mean 10 years ago this would have made proper geeks cream their pants in excitement, but these days it's all about the criticism!? It's one step on the ladder to a holodeck, what's the deal with complaining all the time? You really expect us to generate the appropriate deflector and teleporter tech to do a 'real' holodeck with no intermediate steps between our current pure-2D displays? I didn't even think that we'd be able to make the type of display th

Re:

[syousef (465911)]

Well, this looks interesting, but isn't it just a multitouch 3D flat panel?

Only if by 3D panel you mean slashvertisement.

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

Well, this looks interesting, but isn't it just a multitouch 3D flat panel?

You say that as if you build these all the time. If you watch the video then in no way does it seem 'lame'.. it's highly impressive. Obviously you'd need an even more impressive GPU to render everything from all the different angles though (I'm assuming that has to be done at least, I didn't see any useful info on the actual display tech in TFA). If that is the case, 3D pre-rendered movies could be done, but real-time 3D games would need a monster system..

Re:

[Prune (557140)]

It is very different from the standard autostereoscopic 3D monitors. One look at their website would have made that obvious: http://holografika.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=63 [holografika.com]

Oblig.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Allowing users to see and manipulate objects in 3D without the assistance of goggles...

You mean these 3D goggles I bought for HoloVizio - they do nothing?

Scoping Gestures.

[camperdave (969942)]

The function offers enormous scope for collaboration across the globe.

It looks like they need enormous scopes to just display the images, let alone collaberate. As for that guy "manipulating" the Rubic's cube... well, let's just say the gesture recognition needs a lot of work. It looked a lot like he was just following the movements of the cube, rather than the other way around.

Re:Scoping Gestures.

[by Anonymous Coward]

*lol*
That guy is making waaaaay too many moves with that cube.
23 would have sufficed...

2D presentation of 3D screen

[MyNymWasTaken (879908)]

The video presentation was hilarious. It's like the cooking shows on TV where they are talking about how good the food smells. Relevant information is lost in the presentation.

Look - a 3D screen! Doesn't it look amazing?

It looks exactly like everything else in the 2D medium that it is being presented in.

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA (1058596)]

Or ads for HD TVs that get broadcast in SD.

Holodeck or "Minority Report"

[mykepredko (40154)]

Looking at the demo video (comment below) and reading TFA, it looked more like a gesture response on a 2D screen than anything approaching a holodeck. More like Tom Cruise's display selection used in "Minority Report"

In any case, the guy in the video looked like he was following the movement of the Rubic's cube, not guiding it. If you were a VC, I would suggest investigating this a lot more - it seems to be more vapourware than something that's ready for prime time.

myke

Re:

[Ai Olor-Wile (997427)]

Touching and gestures shouldn't be focused on so much--that technology is already perfect in the hands of Apple, Microsoft, and the university research that preceded them. I think what's really important is that we now have a video screen that is capable of displaying 3D images without any glasses used, like those old museum displays that had to be etched with lasers in obscure materials. (I think I saw a beaver once that accomplished this same effect.) Bugs or even vapourware in touch stuff are totally acc

Re:

[JustinOpinion (1246824)]

If you were a VC, I would suggest investigating this a lot more - it seems to be more vapourware than something that's ready for prime time.

That may be putting it lightly. Their site [holografika.com] makes rather grandiose claims, that the screen generates a high-quality, full-color image with full depth-information, viewable from any angle by an unlimited number of viewers (i.e.: it's not just using motion tracking to simulate 3D for the one viewer). If true, this would be hugely significant!

However, their "explanation [holografika.com]" of the technology is rather... vague. Once you strip out all the trite market-speak and "trying to sounds scientific" techno-babble, you'

Re:

[fm6 (162816)]

Everybody here is a trekkie, so of course it's a Holodeck. Never mind that it's not fully immersive, and can't simulate actual physical objects.

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

Well, thinks about it. I'd think that even Top 100 supercomputers would struggle to render at that kind of quality/resolution in real time from all the display angles (although it looks like it might just do left/right rather than up/down as well so that simplifies things a lot and makes it more possible), so I assumed that it was like the monsters in Black&White, which had preset animations according to where you 'touched' them.. except that this has pre-rendered graphics as well as preset animations.

P

I'm all for 3D displays

[Wavebreak (1256876)]

But this article is light on the details. How does it work, what will it cost, when will it be available, is it even viable for mass production? 3D displays have been "any day now" for years, gonna need convincing to believe that this one's anything other than just another one of the numerous attempts that are hyped all over the place but never actually amount to anything.

Hell, I'd be happy with head tracking, I mean come on, it's been demonstrated by some guy using a bloody wii remote, why can't we even get a proper working implementation of that for games and 3d modeling software and whatnot?

Re:

[Prune (557140)]

3D displays have been on sale for years already. I have no idea what in the hell you mean "any day now". How do they not "amount to anything"? I've used autostereoscopic 3D displays from different companies at SIGGRAPH years ago, versions of commercial products, and they work just fine. Your rant is very ill-informed.

Holodeck 1.0?

[dr_wheel (671305)]

...more like Holodeck 0.01.

When I can spray a truffle-shuffling Chunk with my tommy gun, then we'll start talking about release candidates.

Holodeck Technology

[Microsift (223381)]

I think you mean Shi 'Ar Danger Room technology(though I'm sure someone else had this idea before the X-Men)

We're not even at the goggles stage yet

[MrSteveSD (801820)]

I've been waiting some 20 years for home virtual reality and yet I still can't go into a shop and buy an immersive virtual reality games system or even a decent Head Mounted Display that has anything like human field of view. I'd like to be able to walk around games like Oblivion and look up at a huge castle by tilting my head back, giving me a real sense of how small I am in the world. I could buy a HMD now, but the FOV is like tunnel vision and so is hardly immersive. In fact FOV rather than stereo viewing is probably the most important thing for immersion since your binocular vision breaks down quite quickly over distance.

I wonder how many more years we are going to have to wait. It's really annoying since we have the computer power now (Compared to the Dactyl Nightmare cube graphics days) , but the visual hardware is lagging far behind and there doesn't seem to be much will to bring VR to the masses.

Home virtual reality is here.

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Close your eyes. Now imagine that you are on the balcony of mountaintop villa in Italy. The scenery is breathtaking-- the snowcapped peaks off in the distance, the hustle of the beautiful, palm-tree-lined streets below. The ocean pounding the cliffs to the west. Standing beside you is Cindy Crawford. She's pulls your head toward her, and kisses you full on the mouth, reminding you that you need to be looking at her and not the village... Now let your imagination carry you away.

There. Home virtual reali

Re:

[ColdWetDog (752185)]

Interesting?

You guys need to get out more often.

You think *that's* bad?

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

I've been waiting 35 years for working X-Ray glasses. :-(

pdf on CRS4 design; 64 XGA projectors used!

[sanadmin (1304727)]

http://www.crs4.it/vic/data/papers/ieeevr2006ws-holo.pdf [crs4.it]

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

TFA should have linked to this to stop people whining about the lack of description of how this works. Most people are accusing it of vapourware just because they can't understand how something like that would even work! I had thought that it was to do with pixels that shone out different colours at different angles, but it's a bit more complicated than that.. I still don't understand it exactly but it's pretty clever, if highly expensive! Would have to cost at least $30-40000 to build something like this?

What is wrong with you people?

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

All the holodeck ever did was try to take over the Enterprise, kill everyone on board and, assuming Ensign Barclay must have at some point loaded an anime tentacle porn simulation, mate with the more nubile females in the crew.

He who does not learn from the future is doomed to repeat it!

holograms.

[IronWilliamCash (1078065)]

I think most people here don't see what's actually going on... This is a real 3d, like imax, but without the glasses and since you're all viewing it on a 2d screen, of course you can't see the 3d!!. They are using holograms to achieve real 3D. I know no one reads TFA but still, some of the comments today aren't of slashdot level.

Forget article; check website for technical detail

[Prune (557140)]

This doesn't work like the usual autostereoscopic 3D monitors. A few seconds in Google lead me to their site: http://holografika.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=63 [holografika.com] Note the described operation, and also the interesting claim that "There's no contradiction between eye-convergence and focusing"--this is not the case with 3D shutterglasses or normal autostereoscopic monitors.

Re:

[strength_of_10_men (967050)]

according to their site [holografika.com] the 3D effect works for multiple views. whether or not each viewer sees a different perspective is unclear, but wasn't the Wii hack for a single view?

Just an auto stereo screen

[DrYak (748999)]

This is just another auto stereo screen.
(similar to those that even Zalman started to mass produce for very cheap).

It has nothing to do with all the recent development in visualing actual *volumes* in true 3 dimensional space, such as displays based on air plasma (project a monochrome image in space by focussing lasers to locally form small plasma pixels in the air) or displays using a rotating projection screen. Those technologies produce image in space that can actually be viewed from any where around.

In

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

Uh.. if you had actually read TFA like you claim, then you'd know that this is nothing like a system that tracks people round the room and changes the view accordingly. It works for multiple viewers, so it obviously is putting out different images for each angle. That's what makes it interesting. Anyone with some accelerometers and small displays can do VR headset type stuff, but this seems to be a 'true' 3D display, albeit on a 2D surface

Re:

[globaljustin (574257)]

this isn't about screen display vs. headset vr...at all (keep your red herrings to yourself)...this IS about using hand motions to manipulate the image

from TFA:

The 3-D image is maintained as they move about - both in contrast with early attempts at holographic displays. But the real star of the Coherent project is not simply the display...Better yet, gesture recognition means that observers can manipulate the models by waving their hands in front of the screen. The function offers enormous scope for c

Re:

[badboy_tw2002 (524611)]

For serious! There are like 35 other 3d displays that don't require head tracking and show a true 3d image from multiple angles to multiple people simultaneously. My Fisher Price HoloView 3000 does the exact same thing!

Watch the video. The fact that the camera was moving and changing angles while someone else was interacting with it from their own perspective is what is interesting about this product. Assuming the video isn't faked, its a pretty cool development and I haven't seen much else like it. If

Re:3d porn! WHOOO

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

3d INTERACTIVE porn

You just know that was on the inventors' short list of reasons why they decided to create such a device.

Re:3d porn! WHOOO

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

No, it's all the rest of them.

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

He just sucks at moving it. He'd probably be crap with an eyeToy as well.. would help if he either kept his hands to the edges and didn't try to move so quick.. looked a bit like it was detecting directional movement over the black lines.

Re:

[ATMD (986401)]

I'll second that.

Especially when the only details given for how it works are "advanced holographic techniques" or whatever the quote was. I smell bullshit.

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

His method also only works for one viewer. It is of course much more practical and useful until we have computers that can render complex scenes from all angles at once though. The display in TFA is much more like a real 'holodeck' because it works for multiple viewers, but in the meantime all we need to make better games/simulations is head tracking.