"Holographic" Desk Allows Interaction With Virtual Objects 85
Zibodiz writes "The Sensors and Devices group at Microsoft Research has developed a new system called HoloDesk that allows users to pick up, move and even shoot virtual 3D objects.
It's about the size of a filing cabinet and is made up of an overhead screen that projects a 2D image through a half-silvered beam splitter into a viewing area beneath. A Kinect camera keeps tabs on a user's hand position within the 3D virtual environment, a webcam tracks the user's face to help with placement accuracy, and custom algorithms bring everything together in (something very close to) real time."
HoloDesk? (Score:1)
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First they would have to prove that people are confused by the name and mix it up with a product produced by Star Fleet.
I don't think anyone will make the honest mistake of thinking this product was produced by a 25th century institution.
However, I'm sure if Apple were to buy Paramount they would sue anyway. Especially if this device has rounded corners, an on/off switch, or limited buttons.
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Funny... my first thought was that this would have no interest for "the industry" therefore the technology was doomed.
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.. no interest for "the industry" ..
Isn't it called "the business" ?
Re:HoloDesk? (Score:5, Informative)
There's no force-feedback yet. You can interact with object in the environment, but you can't feel them. So this is of no interest to Picard, or the porn industry, for now.
Not on this one, but the University of Tokyo is coming closer to force feedback using ultrasound:
http://www.gizmag.com/tactile-holographic-display/12466/ [gizmag.com]
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But humans did roam the earth at the same time as dinosaurs! Don't you watch Terra Nova?
And don't forget Land of the Lost [wikipedia.org]. Even if you disregard the time-traveling modern humans, the show clearly documented early cavemen (i.e. Cha-Ka) living with dinosaurs.
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I think you overestimate people's average intelligence...
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24th :P
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Google didn't think twice about naming their failed messaging service Wave in reference to the communications in Firefly. Of course, I'm not sure which lasted longer - Google Wave or Firefly. Maybe there'll be a movie.
Re:Not related to holography, at all. (Score:2)
D. Gabor and Denisuk would be sad about this incorrect usage of "holography" in the summary..
Point Cloud ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm surprised they are using a point cloud and not a mesh for the tracking? That would explain why the physics seems a little unstable / jumpy when the ball floats around on the book.
Cool prototype -- will be real interesting to see what kind of applications get developed once this tech is cheap enough where every home has one.
Re:Point Cloud ? (Score:4, Interesting)
(and yes, I realize that the size of the particles you see doesn't necessarily mean that this is what the program is doing, but the number of particles probably is)
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Nice point! But, I imagine it comes from plug in solution that the kinect is. Why would they want to make a custom solution? JUST KIDDING! Although, this seems to be the modern mindset, which is perfectly fine for interesting idea creation.
Call me unimaginative, but I picture vr glasses as becoming cheaper before something the size of a cabinet does.
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Of course, it's possible that someday you could get the same effect with a pico-projector, but doing the 3D scanning *and* 3D projecting from a single point really is sci-fi, for now.
Games (Score:2)
Oooh, I can't wait to play "Operation" on one of these!
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And I can't wait to play Leisure Suit Larry on one of these.
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Nor can your surgeon.
Aw Bob grows up (Score:2, Funny)
Sure sounds like rebirth of MS Bob. MS never lets old code go to waste, wait long enough the idea will come around again.
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The next step is for a holographic full-sized office with a holographic representation of a laptop on the desk ;)
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It's virtually guaranteed that they will some day ;)
StarWars (Score:1)
Already been done.... back in 98 (Score:3, Informative)
I worked for the Electronics Visualization Laboratory, back in the late 90's. We developed a similar system called PARIS,some time around 1998.
http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=1&indi=83
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I saw a movie of this in '93 at a IEEE meeting, could be one of your early prototypes, could be you were not the first, hard to say.
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Ha I found it "digitaldesk" all one word.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-330.html [cam.ac.uk]
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5772530828816089246 [google.com]
I believe this movie dated june 1991 is the actual movie I watched in '93 at the IEEE meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8lCetZ_57g [youtube.com]
The movie is well worth watching and I promise my immortal /. Karma that it is not a rickroll.
Other than resolution and 3d acceleration, nothing has really changed in the past 20 years WRT this specific technology.
Now where did I leave that virtual stapler (Score:2)
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Re:Now where did I leave that virtual stapler (Score:5, Funny)
nooooooo don't let clippy out of there or we are all doomed
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I see you are attempted to create a holographic environment. Would you like some help?
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Pfffft (Score:2)
I am working on a system that lets you manipulate objects on a desktop, but contains both 3D objects and immediate and realistic tactile sensation.
The best part is the objects are completely functional. For instance, I have a pencil object right now that will write on a paper object and dull itself over time. It is realistically modeled in wood.
I've also implemented drawers which can be used to organize and store the objects for later retrieval, as well as a rudimentary file system.
I'm not entirely sure wha
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Yeah, and could you do a fully interactive read of an MRI with one of those? Would be very useful to push and prod and turn 3D scans, and peel away layers. There's plenty more applications.
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I think it is unrealistic to expect a wooden desk to process MRI images when the human brain itself is often incapable of processing a "joke."
Paging Johnny Mnemonic (Score:2)
Now we're talking.
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Slashdot Logos (Score:1)
Have the Slashdot story logos gone banal all of a sudden?
What happened to The Borg Gates?
Even the story about Gates's reinvention of the toilet [slashdot.org] uses some boring stock photo.
Awesome game ideas! (Score:1)
Just imagine: virtual hand-washing dishes, virtual weed pulling, virtual pebble sorting.
The video-game possibilities are endless!
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We all knew Facebook 3rd-party developers would capitalize on it eventually.
Applications for science (Score:1)
I'm going through the Organic Chemistry sequence in college right now and I find the one of the most difficult ideas to present to students (myself and my classmates) is the 3D spatial arrangement of molecules.
If the professor had access to one of these Holodesks during a lecture he could rotate enantiomers as well as perform reactions in real time which could be a huge boon for anyone having trouble with regiochemistry.
When did Microsoft stories (Score:1)
Lose the Borg logo?
Sorry (Score:2, Interesting)
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any sort of innovation or invention MUST have a practical use.
No, but it must provide a foreseeable return on investment if you expect the idea to ever leave the prototype stage. It's easy to beg for money for projects. It's hard to take projects and turn them into money. How can this be turned into money?
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That's right - all research and development is done because we already what the ROI will be in the end. In fact, we don't even need to do this R&D anymore...we should just be going straight to the R on the I, and skip all the stuff that comes between ideas and the the final, polished product or implementation. Now if only we could somehow research and develop a way to actually accomplish this feat...anyone have a proof of concept for this?
Re:Sorry (Score:4, Insightful)
instead of relying on sensors that are orders of magnitude more sensitive or precise than the human hand
The hand isn't a sensor at all in this context; rather, the manipulations of the hand are picked up by distinctly non-hand sensors. It's clear the current limit on this system is those sensors, computers, and software - all of which could improve quickly if this moved beyond research.
extremely low resolution hands
My hands have, uh... pretty high resolution. Are your hands kind of blocky? Do they show aliasing when you turn them? More to the point, humans are extremely adept at doing fine manipulation with their hands and these manipulations are extremely intuitive. If they could make this work very well, I see no reason it couldn't be used for a bunch of things: teaching and demonstrating, as an intuitive UI for controlling robots (that might actually be acting on smaller or larger or toxic or distant objects in real life), or for experimenting with possible approaches or designs.
It doesn't take much imagination to come up with possible applications for this.
That said, probably it will never come to anything (at least not in a similar form) or not for a while. But if you disapprove because you fail to see practical applications now, I think you're both wrong (in this case) and misguided (in the general case). I think it's cool MS is doing research that they probably can't exploit immediately. It shows foresight to be thinking about interface methods before they're really practical. Nintendo (or whoever they bought tech from) probably had some very crappy Wii-like peripherals in research long before they worked well enough to sell. It might take 100 ideas and prototypes like this to find 1 that is the next big thing. But that's how we get cool new stuff.
Disregarding all that, even if it was completely pointless (and I don't think it is) I think it's fun that we can see it and discuss it on a site that is about interesting technology.
I mean short of being a toy, what is the point?
Do you mean "beyond being a toy"? If so, you said the exact opposite thing. Or do you not think this would fall short of working as a toy? Because it seems to me like it works as a toy right now.
Like Surface... (Score:2, Insightful)
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CSI will jump on this for sure...
Bring back the Borg Gates! (Score:1)
Seriously, bring back that thing.
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You'd be naive to believe they don't have a few robotic Gates' stashed away somewhere "just in case".
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That's because you can actually get some work done on a good Linux distro, instead of spending all your time rebooting and getting popups out of your face.
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Does anybody else see hiding this from the wife a problem? Give it to some porn websites and let them work out the details, and they'll have a commercially viable product in 6 months.
Except this technology exists since 1998 [uic.edu]. Pron industry had 13 years to take it for free, but now that MS claimed it to be their latest "innovation" you have to pay them rent for it every time you buy a non-Windows computer. (MS does not specify what patents it collects rent on, so this one might be among them).
HoloDesk? I have dyslexia damn it! (Score:1)
Shopping... (Score:1)
If these get cheap enough that you can put one of these in your house, it would give you the ability to handle a virtual version of whatever item you wanted to buy... before you bought it! If these machines were accurate and sensitive enough (and had the computational power) you could even interact with a virtual version of say, a mobile phone. You wouldn't be able to actually "feel" anything you you were handling, but it sure beats the hell o
I've always wanted a 3D weather applet (Score:2)
and visualize the thunderstorm right there on the edge of my desktop, as it as it lurches towards Virginia.
Holochair (Score:1)
So, I can use this to throw virtual chairs?
Worst Salad Bar Ever (Score:1)
Whats with the crappy resolutions? (Score:2)
In this day and age, why do they always upload this in some shitty lowres version recorded on someones Nokia phone from 1998?
1080p people!