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3-Dimensional Holographic Projector 118

Posted by timothy from the vivid-video-will-lead-the-way dept.
NO WAY! writes: "Wired has a story about Dimensonal Media's demonstration of a holographic projection system at this year's Comdex. Apparently the damn thing can project 3-d videos or create a live projection of an object as it goes. This sounds unbelievable -- has anyone else heard of this? Check out the article." It does sound unbelievable, but then, so does the idea of thousands of tiny nanoprobes hidden in our food.
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3-Dimensional Holographic Projector More

3-Dimensional Holographic Projector

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  • Please post a link inside the site - I can't do shockwave in order to get to the things you talk about. To me it's just a static page with one downloadable pdf file.
  • Great, now I just need a few of these so I can build my own holodeck(TM).
  • How is the object lit but.

    I can't remember there being any holes in the mirrors or anything (but then it has been a good few years since I saw one).

    Light must light up the real object somehow.

    Zilch
  • My ninth grade math teacher was fond of this. he had one with a small pig figurine, and he would amaze us with the floating pig (or flying pig; yikes, I just got that). But that depends on you looking at one of the concave mirrors. This new system seems to just generate the object in the air (using mirrors, of course). Marvelously cool.

    -J
  • Srorrim emos teg uoy neht dna ~=ekoms=~ fo stol yub uoy tsrif.

  • Are porn vids what made VCRs "famous"?
    Are porn sites what made the internet popular?

    Unfortunately, yes. Or at least, porn was the first commercially successful application of each of those technologies.

    I remember reading MacWorld way back when, and for a few years, every year was being proclaimed "the year of the CD-ROM." But it didn't happen. Then a CD came out called "Virtual Valerie." I recall an editorial (don't recall by whom, but it was one of the regular columnists) proclaiming that, now that there was porn, this would finally be the year of the CD-ROM.

    He was right.

    Sad, but true.

  • The simplest version of the technology is based on a system of mirrors and lenses. The object whose image is being projected sits inside a pedestal, which projects the object's light into space above the pedestal, where the image is reformed. The effect is as if the object itself is hovering above the pedestal's surface.

    This is the old penny pedestal trick (seen in science gadget catalogs since the 70's) taken to the next level. Certainly impressive, especially if they can do projection, but not quite as suprising as all that.

  • ...'til I make millionz of bux0rz so I can buy one of these things. Maybe then Natalie Portman will come over. Then I'll sell her 3-D nude image to all of you other geeks for mucho $$$. I'll be richer than Gates in no time....

    Okay, let's get this right out of the way, shall we?

    Click here for a nude picture of Natalie Portman [20m.com].

    Trolls...

    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
  • "has your television presenter talk back to you and analyse points you made out loud."

    I've used a telephone, and video telephone technologies have been around for decades. It has been a couple of years since my last teleconference.

  • Because this is a mirror/optical effect, light (and subsequently shadow) will appear on the actual object.
    A simple analogy is using a periscope behind a wall. If i aim flashlght at the portion of the periscope I can see, it will also appear to you to be directly in front of you, rather than a foot or two up.
  • I saw something like this at a science museum several years ago. The museum had a huge arcade room, which included a holographic game. The game did not require any headgear, but it displayed full color animation. Your character was a very realistic person, which you could move around with the joystick. Other character could come an attack you. It was really similar to an RPG, but it was projected in 3d.
  • Have you never seen those little UFO shaped things that are shiney on the inside? You can drop a little toy pig inside and it appears like its standing in mid-air, its cool.. so yes its possible (and those things costs $20 at science stores)

    Klowner
  • I went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum back in 82 or 83, and they had 6 or seven of these things. I remember one display had a really vivid 3D image of a toy bicycle. The image was slightly transparent, but of good quality from any angle. Projecting these images without actually having the solid inside the projector, is another story altogether. Imagine working in CAD, without having to use viewpoint tools. Just point to an intersection or surface is space, and change properties.... O.K. I have to add the cursory "Yea, but does it run Quake!"
  • Back in 1967, at the Museum of Science in Boston, they had an exibit that showed a bowl of coins inside a box. The exhibit encourage you to reach into the box and try to take the coins. They were not where they appeared to be.

    Inside the box (as pointed out by the poster affixed to the wall next to the box), was a series of curved mirrors. The real bowl was located elsewhere inside the box, out of reach.

    This was in the 1960's!!!

    If those guys try to patent this, I would hope that the Museum of Science would stand up and cry fowl that they had allready had this technology!

    One of the weaknesses of this technology, by the way, was that the whole game is spoiled when fingerprints started to accumulate on the mirrors themselves. The exhibit was a real headache for the musuem because the maintenance staff had to constantly reach in with Windex and clean the darn surfaces.

    I am a little suprised that this did not happen at the Comdex exhibit, unless of course, the box was kept well out of reach of the hands of the crowds looking at it. Someone standing by with a bottle of Windex would probably spoil the whole magic!

  • I tend to believe this is all possible. I remember going to an arcade and seeing this technology before...It was quite some time ago too, I'm talking in the early 90's. You would go up to the arcade game and your character would be a, careful here, TWO DIMENSIONAL hologram. You could walk 360 degrees around the game that was shaped much like a table and only ever see one side of your character. It was still quite impressive though. Actual location of the said video game: West Edmonton Mall Arcade in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
  • This is all fine and good, but the real question is, how did the rebels get the planet-moon of endor into one of these?
  • I thought the company's site was this page [dimensionmedia.com]. Apparently not. I'm kind of glad I ran into it though, in a sick sort of way... but if you don't have java enabled, don't bother.

  • Panoramtech Passive stereo projector (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Check this one out. PSP-DLP 1024 [panoramtech.com]
  • While I agree it sounds like an old trick, what makes that a bad thing, exactly? I mean, just because its some old magic trick (basically), is it impossible to build on those principles?

    I mean, if wierd mirror tricks do the job, maybe they aughtta find a way to make those mirror tricks work better.

    In any case, its still interesting enough to me.
  • great! in a few years we'll have holodecks! then maybe we'll finally have transporters (as far as I'm concerned, transporters should already have been invented... I'm tired of travelling and having to sit around for 8 blasted hours to get to Seattle! and waiting for things to come in the mail!!!!! damnit I want transporters!!!!!!!!!!!)
    bye.

  • > Luke: It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home.
    They're not much bigger than two meters.

    Note: that's a damn big rat!

    In all seriousness, that sequence simply showed some 3D-projected images on a 2D screen. I am reminded more of the "Endor moon" sequence in ROTJ where the moon and Death Star are projected in 3D into thin air and rotated for all to see.

    That's where this idea falls flat - there is no way to draw in thin air, since photons don't interact with each other. You literally need "smoke and/or mirrors" to get this illusion. As with holograms, where you are actually looking at a piece of glass or plastic, giving the illusion of projecting an image into thin air.

    The best simulation of this that I've seen uses a spinning helical piece of translucent plastic under a dome, with a laser "drawing" on the plastic surface. Because it's spinning, it looks like the laser is drawing on air.

    Oh, and for all you hologram aficionados out there: a piece of a hologram does not contain the "whole image." It contains a portion of the interference pattern, or a range of views of the whole image. :)

    - MFN

  • btw. would you even need a 3d accellerator? We wouldn't be computing 3d data to a 2d display anymore... just displaying the 3d data...

    Most likely, in the same way that we have 2d graphics cards right now. Most of us don't think about them, because almost everything these days can do everything you could possibly want in 2d. There will be a lot of effects you need to get combined to display in 3d to make it look pretty, no matter what depth the display is.

    If God wanted us to think, he would have given us brains.
  • You have missed the point, which is that lecturing in two places at once doesn't require 3d. You can do it just fine in 2d on a television. Of course, anything in 3d is much more fun that 2d.

    Also the interactivity you mention has nothing to do with whether it's 3d or 2d, but I'm sure that wasn't what you meant.
  • I doubt it... like video? no. like magazines? no.

    None of those technologies you mentioned have anything to thank to porn. They popped up, and then the porn nutheads just came and jumped onto it like leeches.

    Are porn vids what made VCRs "famous"?
    Are porn sites what made the internet popular?
    I'd answer no to those.

  • The closest you'll get that I know of is the 2D equivilent virtua girl [virtuagirl.com].

    Where you can download animated virtual girls who strip on your desktop on demand or at vary intervals.

  • Great Technology but there's a catch..... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look who owns the company... http://www.3dmedia.com about us->executives there's always a fucking catch..
  • 1) you have to have the actual object inside the device that projects it
    2) its inc. yet i cant seem to buy stock in them
    3) their site just screams "we did it! we made some awesome new technology! when its just a bunch of magician tricks with mirrors that they've been doing for some time now
    4) this statement: "To further extend the inherent advantages of 3D images, Dimensional Media(tm) can add a tactile force feedback interface to the Hypercube 3D Display(tm) This feature allows the user to not only see 3D images but to touch and feel them as though they were real objects. This quantum leap in capability can be used to . . ."

    basically you have to hold something to feel the feedback, in the medical example its a pair of forceps, wheres the "quantum leap" here? its just VR with the old volumetric display we've heard about since something like july with force-feedback forceps, nothing new to see here, just a few technologies coming together under the name "Dimensional Media(tm)" and then they boast that its "radical" and "new"

    i started out awed, but in the end i was upset at how stupid it is, they made it out to be something entirely new.

  • Re:is this like that coin trick (Score:3)

    by mOdQuArK! ( 87332 ) on Saturday November 18, 2000 @06:03AM (#616121)
    I remember seeing one of these at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry). They used a coin or a screw or something.

    The image looked really good from certain angles (coin floating in midair), looked kind of distorted & hurt your eyes a bit (felt like they were crossing) from other angles, and if you actually looked into the hole in the top mirror, the resulting reflections REALLY hurt your eyes...

    (I saw this about 20 years ago, when I was a just a little squirt, but have some good memories of it.)

    These Dimensional Media guys are being real quiet about their technology, but from the vague details I've been able to synthesize from the various articles floating around the net, it sure sounds like they're using these kinds of optical tricks to create their "volumetric displays", although they're using larger objects than a coin and bolt, and the reviews seem to be impressed with the clarity of the objects, so they've probably improved the optics a lot somehow.

    As far as their dynamic displays were concerned, it sounded like they had a 12-plane video source which they used to create a 3D image using their optical techniques.
  • Here they are:

    a href="http://myplanner.key3media.com/comdex/fall20 00/planner/ExhibitorDetail.CFM?ID=1276"& gt; http://myplanner.key3media.com/comdex/fall2000/pla nner/ExhibitorDetail.CFM?ID=1276/a&g t;
  • I remember seeing a holographic video game in an arcade about 8 years ago. The player actually was looking at the reflection of a video image on a flat horizontal surface in front of him. The game was constructed so that you could not tell where the reflection was coming from and of course you couldn't see the CRT directly. The effect was 100% astonishing. Game control was primitive, one-dimentional (time). You pushed a button to make the cowboy shoot when an outlaw appeared.

  • Grr. Sorry, posted as plain text. Trying again... a href="http://myplanner.key3media.com/comdex/fall20 00/planner/ExhibitorDetail.CFM?ID=1276"& gt; http://myplanner.key3media.com/comdex/fall2000/pla nner/ExhibitorDetail.CFM?ID=1276/a&g t;
  • 1) you have to have the actual object inside the device that projects it

    No, if you read the article is says that is the SIMPLEST version, they also say they have 3D video projectors, now how are you going to show 3D holographic video with everything inside that little pedistal?

    2) its inc. yet i cant seem to buy stock in them

    Incorportated != publicly traded, as another commenter pointed out.

    3) their site just screams "we did it! we made some awesome new technology! when its just a bunch of magician tricks with mirrors that they've been doing for some time now

    3D Holographic video projectors IS an awesome new technology. Now all you have to do is make a 3D forcefeild projector and we can have holodecks...

    -- iCEBaLM
  • First invent tractor and pusher beams.
  • Oh yeah, I can totally see how the fact that an exec at this company was a chairman of the RIAA at one point constitutes a "catch".
    --
  • I guess at a basic level they replaced the mirrored internal of the "sphere" with a complex 360 degree video screen you would have a similar effect.

    I don't think it's quite that simple. The hard problem is getting it to look different at different angles. (If you look at a video screen, it's not like looking at a mirror.)

    -John

  • "lecturers would be able to speak from remote locations as if they were physically in the lecture theatre or could present simultaneous lectures in different locations."

    Something like television?

  • Old news (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday November 18, 2000 @08:59AM (#616130) Homepage
    This is just a spherical mirror illusion. You can buy a little one from Edmund Scientific. (On sale for only $29.95 this month!) [edmundscientific.com] Sega's "Time Traveller" and "Holosseum" [rainemu.com], arcade games of the early 1990s, used similar technology.

    Big versions of this are cool, but they're inherently big. The geometry of the thing requires a much bigger mirror than the size of the image projected.

    This has been discussed before on Slashdot. Editors, you've got to research your own backfiles more. Just because Wired doesn't know anything about technology doesn't mean Slashdot shouldn't.

  • Snake Oil (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18, 2000 @06:22AM (#616131)
    Because...

    - The demonstrations on Dimensional Media's site are Flash presentations, or computer generated simulations of their proported computer generated recreations. Why no real video of the device in action?

    - Under R&D is just more PR hype and broadcast clips from such internationally renowned scientific authorities as Fox TV and ABC News, and nothing else. The Fox clip makes no reference to Dimensional Media or visualization technology at all, but does have a couple of nice inserts from Star Wars and Robocop. Why no technical information about the device? No patents? No references to scientific papers?

    - For a person to see anything, light has to reach the eye. An object must radiate or reflect/re-radiate it. Point a flashlight away in a vacuum and you won't see the beam since the physical objects (air, dust, water vapour) necessary to re-direct the light back towards your eyes are lacking. So how does DM's device point light into mid-air and have it form an image?

    I'm not waiting for the IPO.

  • There are, so far, no such things as holograms that project into thin air. They can use optical tricks to fool your eyesight into thinking that the object you're looking at is closer than it appears, but as the video proves, you can't look at it from a 90-degree angle and see it floating in the air, with other objects behind it. So the end result is the same frustrating thing about all contemporary holograms: it looks great, but only from a very narrow angle.

    This is why there's so much focus on surgery and computer-aided design, and not on entertainment. Look at www.3dmedia.com's website; all the news stories are talking about heart surgery. They're not talking about virtual lectures, where an auditorium full of students can watch a professor who isn't there. They're not talking about holographic user interfaces. And they're certainly not talking about ViRTüAL pr0n.

    In fact, neither their website, nor their people, use the term "hologram" to refer to this technology. That's because real holography is limited to those CD-colored printed holograms. Those are traditionally created in a process slightly similar to photography, and are so commonplace as to be used as counterfeit protection on credit cards and drivers licenses today. Even in the late 80's, I ate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal out of a box with a hologram printed on it. I also saw a TV news story once where they printed holograms on chocolates.

  • the best part about this article isn't the unbelievable technology (altho it is really spiffy)

    it's the department it comes from...proving yet again that pr0n is the real reason for mankind's existence ;)


    -dk
  • Sounds like a souped up version of those mirrored sphere-ish (shaped more like two pudding dishes placed on top of each other - top one inverted) things that they sell in magic shops.

    Right.

    And it's NOT a hologram. (Take it from someone who worked under Leith.)

    A hologram is an interference pattern, in density or phase, that constructs a wavefront by diffraction. This is NOT that.

  • This was, in my opinion, one of the coolest gadgets to be found back in my high school physics class. The device was simply two parabolic mirrors set on top of each other (one opening up and the other opening down on top of it). The light from the actual object, placed at the bottom of the device in the center of the bottom mirror, was reflected once off the top mirror and once again off the bottom mirror. This happened to align the light rays exiting the small hole at the top of the device so that your eye saw the rays to converge several inches above where the actual image was (causing it to appear to 'hover' in space.)

    The points of view where you see fuzziness are results of imperfections. Perfect parabolic mirrors are extraordinarily hard and expensive to manufacture, so these things usually use not-so-perfect flattened spherical mirrors.

    I suspect this is all their technology is doing -- they have some sort of system of mirrors that operates with a normal projector to cause the exiting light rays to appear to 'converge' from a different point in space. Still very cool, and I can't wait to try one out...!
  • Hey, I saw the 3D on Comdex 2 days ago. It's really amazing. And look, it's not a computer effect - it's lens. They put a cilinder with lens around the monitor, and by 3 to 6 feet it looks like Obi Wan Kenoby (sic...).

    The guy in the booth showed me a real, solid state ball (a real object) showed as a hologram. Then, he put a business card over the ball and both became a hologram.

    Really good work.
  • Great technology, and it could really be a boom. VCRs, the Internet, and now this would all be a major technology thanks to porn. No doubt, if this goes mainstream, expect 90% of it to be in the adult entertainment business. Its a fact we have to live with.
  • State the nature of the medical emergency..
  • In all fairness doesn't the article seem to imply that they can (with quality in the near term) render images?

    They even cite CAD/CAM uses. Naw, all they got is a mirror trick. They're just Edmunds Scientific for the infobaun.

    For Darwin's sake, they have a long long long way to go before they have a product that even does anything interesting, and usefulness...well that's dubious. They'll need a mess of LCD projectors, and even then the resolution of their object, which is spread over a surface area, will be questionalble.

    I'm afraid 3d TV and a Britney Spears you can almost touch is a little further off. The best canidate I've seen for that was from a EE research professor from Berkley (IIRC). She used LTZ glasses and pairs of lasers to get a "pixel" to flouresce. I really should have written something down, but it was a seminar, you don't have to take notes in those things. I anycase she had a special hunk of glass, shine 2 lasers, where they cross: a glowing monochromatic dot. She made a circle in a chunk the size of a sugar cube.

    But this is nice too.

    Phi lips 3d LCD (older but interesting) [philips.com]

    Science ain't for wussies.

  • Sounds like a souped up version of those mirrored sphere-ish (shaped more like two pudding dishes placed on top of each other - top one inverted) things that they sell in magic shops.

    You put a coin (or some small object) in the middle of one, and when you look at the top of the "sphere" the image of the object seems to be floating above it. (You are really looking into the small hole at the top of the sphere and seeing the real object, but your eyes are tricked, and the effect is quite real).

    I guess at a basic level they replaced the mirrored internal of the "sphere" with a complex 360 degree video screen you would have a similar effect.

    Cool. Now I want to see one.
  • I was at an ILT conference and someone mentioned that trials had been conducted in the US to use holographic projection to allow virtual lectures.

    The idea being that lecturers would be able to speak from remote locations as if they were physically in the lecture theatre or could present simultaneous lectures in different locations.

    Its sounds like a useful aid to distance learning in instances where a lecture is more suitable than say just using web based learning materials.

    For lectures and traditional CMC discussions it sounds ideal

  • I have an Elsa Erazor 2 graphics card on my PC which comes with some dodgy glasses that make the screen look 3D. But they make you look like a complete idiot when you wear them. Maybe this holographic projection could save me from an attack by the fashion police?!?
  • Using the trick isn't bad (I'm all for using "old" technology that still blows people's socks off :), but hiding the technology, hyping it up as something incredibly new & sophisticated (and, if some of the news reports can be believed, filing patents based on the technology), that's kind of annoying.

    That doesn't mean that I wouldn't enjoy seeing a bunch of these displays in the local grocery store. The technology may be old, but I still enjoyed the effect.
  • $2500 down the drain. ;) (I wish :)

    I remember the days when monitors were the constant in computer evolution. You'd buy a monitor for $500 and 3 years later it'd be worth $350. As compared to any other computer part which would be worth $50.

    Now? Jeez.

    Anyway, I can imagine some crazy uses for this. MRIs come to mind first. Or even using it to display the internals of a human being where a surgeon can get a good look before meddling around.

    I wonder when the first giant-floating-head image of the Emperor from SW will show up :D

  • Re:i doubt it.. (Score:4)

    by bradfitz ( 23252 ) on Saturday November 18, 2000 @02:10AM (#616145) Homepage
    Dimensional Media
    22 W. 19th St., 2nd Fl.
    New York, NY 10011 USA
    http://www.3dmedia.com/ [3dmedia.com] phone: 212-620-4100
    e-mail: info@3dmedia.com
  • Great. What a tease. Looks like taco forgot to do:
    chmod 0644 natalie_portman.jpg

    What's a perv to do???



    In 1999, marijuana [smokedot.org] killed 0 Americans...
  • I really think such a thing is possible.. feel free to prove me wrong, but i'd like to see some hard proof (eg pictures, it touring the world) before i believe it... The article doesnt even give the company's web page, which im sure they would have
    David.

    "Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"

  • What will set Dimensional Media, and a company in Norway which I know the founder of that is working on a similar but improved project, apart is whether or not they can make these things robust, stable, cheap, and popular enough for them to take off. Integration with an IR grid for detection of objects (like fingers) entering the area for 3D UI's is, however, a pretty nice addition...

    Other companies have tried mirror-and-lens based holographic projectors before - I've even played a video game console, in an arcade, which used a similar system - though it only supported 180 degrees of viewpoint (the article says the DM system supports "full look around" which I will consider a claim that it does 360 degree views)

    Their plans to use this with NMR data and, particularly medical, volumetric rendering data is a good plan. I want to be able to go to a doctor's and watch my brain fully modeled in 3D, with real-time display of neural activity... can I bring popcorn? ;-)

    It's not that unbelievable, but if the resolution is as good as they claim, and it finally takes off commercially, then there are a lot of cool medical, 3D user interface, gaming, and, of course, military applications (hey, have the autonomous helicopter robot mentioned today send back 3D projections of the disaster / battle site to its home base...)

  • Wow! The technology sounds great. But can this do any animation? The article only talks of static objects, does this technology do any movement, simulate shadows, etc (I mean, a 3d raycaster for 3d!). Any idea? "....I said Innovate, not imitate!"
  • It was Sega's Hologram Time Traveler. The interesting thing is that there is going to be a home version soon. Well, according to this webpage:
    http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001017/digital_le.html
    excerpts from page for the lazy:
    "Oct. 17, 2000--Revolutionary hologram technology made Hologram Time Traveler an instant hit in the arcades in 1991 and now Digital Leisure has brought the 3D experience to your home computer or DVD movie player for the first time ever"

    Oh yeah, the company putting this out is at:
    http://www.digitalleisure.com/

    and

    "To maintain this hologram feel, Digital Leisure is including free 3D glasses with its CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and DVD-Video versions. A 2D version is included on the same disc that may be played without the 3D glasses"
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I remember seeing a show a (not so long) while ago with Elvis also there, projected as a hologram. So, is this technology something new or did it already exist? Might this be a totally different product?
  • "The company also demonstrated video versions of the technology, which projected video images in 3D."

    nuff said
  • Fuck it. Here it is in plain text:

    http://myplanner.key3media.com/comdex/fall2000/p lanner/ExhibitorDetail.CFM?ID=1276
  • Cruise over to Dimensional Media's website [3dmedia.com] and check out the HyperCube 3D monitor in the R&D tab (no pics, unfortunately). The best quote from the description: "can add a tactile force feedback interface." You will actually be able to roughly feel the object as well! The applications for this kind of tech are endless, from surgery to 3D modeling to CAD to entertainment (gotta feed the pornhounds), etc. I'd say this isn't even possible yet, except for the fact that hundreds have seen it in person at Comdex. Love to know what their products go for, even though I'll never actually be able to afford them. I just can't help but imagine what computing will be like in 20 years (maybe even sooner!) when these babies are commonplace and operating systems are designed in 3D; you'll grab a file and drop it in a folder, literally! :)

    Deo

  • Re:Something's Fishy (Score:5)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Saturday November 18, 2000 @03:34AM (#616156)
    You know, it might be prudent for you to completely understand the technology before posting something like this.

    Funny thing is, it looks like somebody took a Volkswagen Passat toy and mounted it on a motor shaft. If you pause the video about 1/8 of the way through the movie, you can see the support holding the "hologram" up.

    Again, you need to understand how the technology works. The real Passat toy *is* being held up by the motor shaft. However, the real car is INSIDE the machine, and the mirrors are projecting it's image to where the people are watching. You seem to think this is a computer generated image. This isn't Star Trek. It's a real object being projected a few feet away. Do you expect the real Car toy to be suspended in midair? Something has to hold it up.

    Also, look at the car about 3/5 of the way through the video when then spokesman is supposed to be waving his hands through the car. He is actually casting a shadow on the car, which again leads one to believe there's something funny going on here.

    Take a closer look. Yes, he is casting a shadow on the car. The lights above are also reflecting off the car. The car itself casts a shadow. Why? Because the *real* car is in full view of the lights! If you look at his shadow when it passes over the car, it doesn't line up. His fingers appear in the middle of where his palm should be, etc.

    Kind of hard to believe that Wired would be duped by something like this.

    Wired wasn't "duped" by "this". They were at Comdex. They saw the machine in person. They didn't watch a video and write an entire article on it. *CLUE*


    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • They already have developed this sort technology; a long time ago in a galexy far, far away...

    Dodonna > Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

    Wedge > That's impossible, even for a computer.

    Luke > It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.

    Dodonna > Man your ships! And may the Force be with you!
  • OK, I couldn't see the support clearly. However, what I did see was not just the shadows, but the shadows moving _in the opposite direction_ to the hand moving. That means that the shadows are falling onto something solid, and that the image we are seeing is the virtual image of that solid thing. _Exactly_ like those coin/mirror things in magic shops.
    Their own video has convinced me of its fakeness.
    I guess all that they really want is funding, and then they'll do a runner with the money...

    Yes I'm a fscking cynic.

    FatPhil
  • I loved that game!

    http://www.atarihq.com/coinop s/l aser/timetrav.html [atarihq.com]

    -------------
    The following sentence is true.

  • you must have missed this line

    The company also demonstrated video versions of the technology, which projected video images in 3D.

    video version, meaning 3dvideo, 3d UnReal sweeeeeet

  • You're assuming a two-way 3-D link. But the article makes it sound like 3-D TV, so it's a one-way projection technology. If you want two-way to multiple locations then separate cameras will be needed at each location, and separate display screens around the lecturer, just as with TV.

    Unless, of course, it's just a direct projection system involving lenses and mirrors. Like the tabletop device that you put a coin in, and the coin seems to be resting on top of a bowl. But if the image can't be remotely transmitted then this remote lecturing can't happen.

  • Just wated clarify on someting from my original post:

    Kind of hard to believe that Wired would be duped by something like this.

    ... can be taken two different ways. What I meant to imply is that I don't think Wired is easily duped, hence they probably saw the real deal at Comdex (as opposed to what looks like a mock-up), not that they were duped.

    I just figured I'd clear that up before I get more flames. (Thanks, Accipiter)

  • - click on "visualizing" and "videos". There, there's some videos

    - It doesn't project in "thin air", it uses mirrors to create a projected image of a real object or tv screen.

    - under R&D they're working on a computer monitor that displayes animated 3d images, and some crude tactile feedback

    -------------
    The following sentence is true.
  • ...that they are using an (old-fashioned) optical technology rather than something extremly high-tech. It could make these things a little more affordable and less vulnerable. Lispy
  • Except the only time you normally have holograms is on television is Red Dwarf or Star Trek.

    Using it in the real world for lectures is innovative even if the audience is seeing something like television but more interactive.

    You missed the point...
    - have youseen many holographic newsreaders lately (max headroom excluded)
    - has your television presenter talk back to you and analyse points you made out loud.

    ...its television but not as you know it Jim
  • If you really believed that, I don't think you'd be posting AC.
  • Certainly this technique frees you from viewing
    an image depicted on a flat window or screen. However a better form of 3D shows different views from different viewpoints, i.e. objects behind obscuring objects. Holograms and fresnel displays have this latter property.

    Nothing precludes one of these screenless displays updated dynamically depending on the position of the viewer.
  • Here [yahoo.com] is a link to one of those gadgets. The images of the devices at COMDEX bear a resemblance to it, except for the video screen device.
  • Question time... it's all about question time.
  • I've used a telephone

    How quaint to find someone still uses a landline...

    Teleconferencing has been around for years and the only people who seriously use it in education are the University's Directors.

    Even something as primitive as First Class makes a better communication medium than a videophone.

    Videophones were just a big con instigated by the phone companies to wring some more profits out of their land lines before they go the way of the dinosaur

  • Furthermore, their adoption of VHS over the superior Betamax was because VHS was _cheaper_. The reason people originally bought these VHS tapes was because there was very litle else to buy. legitimate companies imagined video to be a threat to their business. That wouldnt have been a factor for porn producers at the time (and now, for that matter) because "Fat Moe and his credit card" isnt exactly a business situation where the concerned parties need to sit on the facts pending further study.

    No, Sony wouldn't allow adult content on Betamax, plain and simple. I'm sure had Sony not placed any such restrictions on Betamax, the format would've thrived for much, much longer.

    --Joe
    --
    Program Intellivision! [schells.com]
  • It's all done with mirrors and tiny wires.

  • To all those people who are saying this is fake, or just another object projector, go to the company's site (http://www.3dmedia.com/) go to "visualizing" then "vidios" then "Virtual Touch". The operator there is interacting with a 3d image.
  • "The company also demonstrated video versions of the technology, which projected video images in 3D. " Images as far as I know are static entities, and clips/animations are those which move! So what is a video image? It could also be that these guys projected parts of videos, each as images. That's what I wanted to know.

  • For those who are interested:

    Dimentional Media Associates is at http://www.3dmedia.com [3dmedia.com] Its a flash site.
    The model M-40DV under products seems to do video.

    Hope that clears some things up.

  • Yeah, this is _seriously_ old news on the display front. Whilst it's a funky trick, the optics are nothing new. It doesn't even look like they've improved it from the basic "hovering coin" trick costing $1 in a toy shop - the object being projected is just concealed in the base. The buttons that you press will actually exist, full-size, in the base.

    If they ever got this to work with electronic displays then I'd be impressed. But as it is, all they've done is taken a very old bit of optics and added a laser grid to detect your finger breaking a beam. If you've never seen this done b4, you'll think it's impressive. But if you've ever been to a school science display, chances are you've seen this.

    So you're not going to have a true 3-D display anytime soon. What they're demonstrating has no use at all for displaying from a computer, since all it can do is project an image of an existing solid object. Sorry.

    Grab.
  • Light can't bend. The entire 3-D image must have the device's aperture in back of it to be visible from any viewpoint. If any point of the image moves beyond the aperture frame, it will be cut off by the frame. This is a very disconcerting effect, since the frame seems to be in back of the image, yet the image is being cut off by that frame.

    You are really looking at something inside the device, but the optics trick your eyes into seeing it outside. You can only see those parts of the object that are visible through the aperature frame.

    This is a dual-concave-mirror system that projects a "virtual image" above the opening of the device. You can only see parts of the object that have a direct line-of-sight to the exposed area of the device's aperture. The image of the object is really reflected light coming from the mirrors within the device, so if you can't see the mirror, you can't see the object.

    This restricts the device to showing objects just above its surface, and restricting the viewing angle so the object isn't cut off by the frame. The optics require that the device be a lot larger than the image displayed. It's a neat effect, but we don't have true "Star Wars" type holograms yet.
  • Perhaps investors have just found something new. Imagine what all can be done if customers of various products could be made to see those images any and everywhere. This could provide the solution to the lack of interest in internet buying because the customer is put off with "can't see for real" attitude. Maybe that will take some time but certain industries could make immediate use of this. Like the housing and interiors industry.
  • The idea being that lecturers would be able to speak from remote locations as if they were physically in the lecture theatre or could present simultaneous lectures in different locations.

    But that means you would be in several places at once... wouldn't that be a little disorienting? Has anybody tried being in several places at once yet? How does it look? Do the visual images overlap?

  • It is still unclear whether it is feasable to compute holograms in real time. It might be that this system is limited to simulcasting live content only -- ie it may only be able to record and replay, not create content from scratch.

    The problem is that holograms are photographs of the interference patterns of two in-phase beams reflecting off an object. You project by illumiating the developed film with similar light.

    Now, replace the film with a ccd and the developed film with a high-resolution lcd, and we can see how to transmit them digitally.

    However, it is likely a bear of a job simluating the light rays needed to create the interference. You'd need to simulate a large subset of all the light beams in the system -- this would make ray tracing seem easy.

    So the specialised hardware you need to quickly perform these massive calculations would be completely different from your video card (indeed, are more likely to be called ASCI blue or whatever).
  • If you go to Dimensional Media's (http://www.3dmedia.com) and follow the links to the Visualizing page, you can actually see a "demo" of the M360 in streaming video. Funny thing is, it looks like somebody took a Volkswagen Passat toy and mounted it on a motor shaft. If you pause the video about 1/8 of the way through the movie, you can see the support holding the "hologram" up. Also, look at the car about 3/5 of the way through the video when then spokesman is supposed to be waving his hands through the car. He is actually casting a shadow on the car, which again leads one to believe there's something funny going on here. Kind of hard to believe that Wired would be duped by something like this. It's possible that video might be an old mock-up, but it still makes you wonder.
  • As noted, the 360 device appears to use the "dual parabolic mirror" trick, to display the virtual image.

    The other devices, though (based on the models shown in the flash anims), seem to use something different.

    What that could be is up to speculation - but I think they may use some form of either a parabolic lens trick (I remember a simple spring/shake hands with yourself display @ the Exploritorium in SF), or possibly using a fresnel lens.

    Sometimes, when you look at a fresnel lens at an angle, objects can appear to "float" above it. I wish I had one of my page magnifiers handy, I would play with it - to see if I could recreate the effect.

    I would imaging one of those, plus a small 14-15 inch monitor housed appropriately, could generate the effect...

    I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
  • Can anyone tell me why Dimensonal Media is not on the comdex's exhibitors lists? Their website is not working (www.dimensionalmedia.com is under construction).
    I never trust articles without pictures, links or anything that makes them different from a commercial presentation...
  • I'm gonna wait until I can play Quake with it.

    Also, How computationally intensive is it.

  • L2526 (Score:1)

    by Zilch ( 138261 )
    ...at least that is what it says on their website.

    Zilch

  • Then you, sir, are an ass.

  • OK, it's not really a trick, I've seen it in the shops before. You have a object shaped something like this

    ___________
    /___________\
    \___________/
    inside it is a coin and the inside surface is a mirror. There is a lense at the top and when you look at it from a certain angle, it looks like the coin is on top of the thing and not inside it. Sound familiar? Anybody know how these things work?

  • I looked at it with some of my co-workers. It's the same device that you see making a 3D image of a penny in places like the Nature Store. (The guy working the booth even admitted it was similar technology.)

    It's just a really perfectly curved mirror inside a device that looks like a UFO. You put the object down in the device, and each of your eyes sees a different reflection of it.

    For real objects, then, it's not that impressive. For animation on the other hand, I couldn't quite see how it worked. It might not have been true 3D (i.e., both of your eyes saw the same image).
  • Just because a company is incorporated (Inc.) does not mean it is publicly traded.
  • I was at Comdex last week and I saw the exhibit. I must say that I was impressed. They had several objects floating out in mid-air and it really looked good if you stood in the right spot.
    This reminded me of a talk I heard by Bill Joy of Sun about 15 years ago at Uniforum in Toronto, where he described that someday, we would be able to sit in our living rooms and watch a 3D football game taking place on the coffee table. You would be able to walk around the table and see the game from any angle. It's still a long way off, but never say never!
  • I remember that. Time Traveller or Time Cop I believe it was called. If I recall though, the Sega arcade game was about the size of a small car. It was also very loud. It sounded like there was an internal combustion generator or an air compressor inside. I hope these problems have been solved in the new version.

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