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Star Wars-like Holograms 250

Posted by timothy from the not-quite-princess-leia-yet dept.
jeffy124 writes: "Business 2.0 has an article up about Ford's use of holograms during vehicle development. It's almost exactly like that scene in the original Star Wars where R2D2 ran a movie of Princess Leia saying 'Help me Obi Wan.' Basically, Ford uses the system during development to get a look at the car and various parts without needing to construct a full prototype. The image is a 3-D projection and hovers just above the floor, allowing the user to walk around the 'vehicle,' getting a look at it from all angles. I can picture the pr0n jokes now!"
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Star Wars-like Holograms More

Star Wars-like Holograms

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  • not forgetting... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DieNadel ( 550271 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:30AM (#3812892)
    that Ford really sucks [fordreallysucks.com], it's an awesome technology.
  • Aw, you mean that last sentence prevents me from making an actual witty remark about pr0n? ...Well, actually, few remarks about pr0n are funny. Anyway, with holograms that show car designs out in 2002, I wonder how long it'll take until we hit a button and watch a news channel hologram on the dining room table during dinner.
    • I wonder how long it'll take until we hit a button and watch a news channel hologram on the dining room table during dinner.

      I bet we'll get consumer projection holography within a decade. (I'm not sure if we'll ever get news channels again, though.)

  • errrrrr... (Score:4, Funny)

    by m.batsis ( 529986 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:31AM (#3812897)
    ... can we classify ghosts as 'legasy systems' now?

  • Exactly like that scene in Star Wars? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:32AM (#3812899) Homepage
    The article says nothing of the sort. The article says that the hologram is still captured on a 2D piece of film. All that's different is that the image is computer-generated rather than from light shining off a physical 3D object. The only mention of Star Wars in the article is as an analogy.
    • I think what the submitter meant was that this was similar to what we experienced in Star Wars. Remember, that was back in the day a bit ('72 wasn't it?), and this is really cool technology, and the last time most of us saw it was in that movie. It's just semantics is all. Anyhow, the part I had to shake my head over was Mr. Analyst boy at the end of the article, talking about how huge the market could be for this.../sarcasm I guess that's why they call the analysts. /Sarcasm How expensive is this? Most companies that don't have a need for this type of modeling will be like "piss off hologram company, in this economy, the software and equipment we already have will do just fine, thanks." My opinion anyway.

      • Re:Exactly like that scene in Star Wars? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Flounder ( 42112 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @05:05AM (#3812988)
        Star Wars came out in '77.

        Turn in your geek ID card at the counter, you'll have it returned to you when you can quote from memory all the dialogue from the Death Star battle.
        • Dude, I was all of two years old. Light sockets were more interesting than Light Sabres at that time. My favorite past-time was feeling my diapers with crap. ;) Give me a break. Tough crowd, tonight, tip your waitress, what you think she makes $10.00 an hour? Sheesh.

          Besides, I actually have a lif...er I mean, no, I ...uhh, yeah,...I just coded 40 hrs straight...can I have my geek card back?

          (*snicker* that joke actually was quite funny though, damn you!)
      • >>and the last time most of us saw it was in that movie

        propbably the last time most of us saw this was the 7 years of the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the re-runs....

        sm......

    • When you look at the picture [akamai.net] at the end of the article, you can see that one part of the laser is directed through a LCD screen, afa I understand it, if you change the pic on the LCD you change the hologram, changing pictures gives you animations if you can change 'em fast enough. Also, according to the graphic, the projection is in the room in front of the projection panel, not behind, like in the common art-photo-holos.
      • Dooh, well i saw it... it is projected onto polymere film... its a still. So no animations until you replace the film against an instant projection panel... lets develop one... :P
      • Not quite... the diagram they show is sort of deceptive.

        What they show is a typical hologram recording setup, but with an LCD instead of the actual 3D object.

        Seems that use of this method would require multiple exposures in order to recreate 3d as perceived in the finished hologram- as the CAD object on the LCD is rotated, the mirror at point #3 would have to change angle in order to change the incidence angle of the laser on the film.

        This is nothing *really* new, except that it looks like they are using really large film plates and an LCD in place of the actual object.

        Another (much more difficult) way to produce computer-generated holograms would require a huge amount of processing power. A standard hologram captures the interference pattern generated by the incidence of the object and reference light beams.
        If a display existed with fine enough resolution to display such an interference pattern, a computer could conceivably generate realtime holographic displays by calculating the interference pattern for a particular scene. Would need a huge amount of processing power and display technology that's not quite commonplace just yet.

        • > a computer could conceivably generate realtime holographic displays by
          > calculating the interference pattern

          I think that's where the real future of holograms lies. Conventional (high resolution, non-rainbow type) holograms are extremely hard to produce for two reasons: they can only create 1:1 scale images, and require an extremely stable benchtop, since the slightest movement or vibration will still be much larger than the wavelength of light, seriously disrupting the interference patterns. OTOH, a computer-generated hologram has none of these limitations, since it doesn't require an actual physical object. In fact, you could generate holograms of actual physical scenes by photographing them Matrix-style with cameras arranged circularly and then generating the interference patterns from that. Or you could even use one of these newfangled camera setups with position and attitude sensors to "paint" a scene and then generate a hologram at any scale from that.

          IIRC, high-rez holograms use emulsions with about 1000 lines per mm, so that's the type of display resolution required for high quality holograms. You might get by with less for acceptable quality, though. I think we'll see holographic displays like this along with the requisite computing power within the next 10-15 years.

  • Grrrr.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by rootedgimp ( 523254 )
    "that not only rendered the T-bird in perfect 3-D but also provided different views as observers moved around it, as if it were really there."
    Yeah, I got the same feeling from their ANNOYING POPUP.
  • or would that be comdii? :) Anyway, a few years ago there was supposedly a company that "stole the show" with they three dimensional holographic projectors. None of the various news sites had pictures, and I don't watch much tv so I don't know if they had video... but one of the reps for the company said that these were reasonably priced and that you'd be seeing them in malls across the US by year end. Obviously, that never happened at least not in Seattle.

    Slightly OT... but oh well.

  • Translation (Score:5, Informative)

    by quintessent ( 197518 ) <my usr name on toofgiB [tod] moc> on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:36AM (#3812908) Journal
    It's almost exactly like that scene in the original Star Wars where R2D2 ran a movie of Princess Leia saying 'Help me Obi Wan.'

    Not really. It's a sheet of film, like the holograms you get on Windows CDs or ones you buy at the toy store. The difference is it's bigger, a lot better quality, and they can create it from a rendered (rather than real) object.

    Contrary to what the Slashdot description implies, there's no real-time anything involved here.

    • Re:Translation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ost99 ( 101831 )
      Contrary to what the Slashdot description implies, there's no real-time anything involved here.
      This [actuality-systems.com] however is more like it.

      - Ost
      • I so wish I could get one of those to hack around with. But $45K is a bit much for me. Hell, I can't even pay the $2k/mth developer's license.
    • Not really. The point is that it looks as though it were hovering in front of the screen, and you can look at it from different angles.
    • there's no real-time anything involved here.

      But there ARE real-time actual 3D holographic worlds used in research and development, that a person can walk through as if it were a real world. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications has a fascinating demonstration of this called the CAVE [uiuc.edu].

      • That's really cool. Looks like a holodeck. Just make sure they keep the safety protocols on when you're doing hurricane exploration.

      • It's two or three back-projection walls and a front-projection floor with alternate frame 3-D synchronizing with a pair of tracked LCD flip glasses. Very clever math for getting the projections right and a very convincing display (especially if you're the one wearing the tracker), but not a hologram.

        It is cool, though. I've written code for it.

  • They can't project Leia yet (Score:3, Informative)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:38AM (#3812915) Homepage
    This technique is a way to quickly make a hologram, on film. You can develop the film and view the hologram.

    What's cool is that they have figured out how to use an LCD screen to computer-generate the 3D holograms. Until now, to make a hologram, you needed a physical object to work from.

    I'd be interested to know how long it takes to make one of these holograms. If they could get their equipment fast enough to make, say, 24 holograms per second, perhaps they could leave out the film part and just generate moving holograms in realtime. I suspect it's a lot slower than that right now.

    steveha
    • Only problem is the film is where the hologram comes from. You would effectively need a roll of film and a shutter for it to work.
    • Until now, to make a hologram, you needed a physical object to work from.

      Not true, for a number of years there have been techniques for creating entirely computer generated holograms. The biggest problem so far is getting a printer with a high enough resolution to do this directly. Photo reduction is generally used to compensate for this.

      However this technology might not (yet) scale well to commercial uses, the computation required seems to be pretty large.

      A quick google should find you plenty of examples.

    • My guess is that developing the hologram takes about as much time as developing a regular photograph.

      There are two kinds of holograms; the more expensive and complicated kind, and the less expensive and complicated and also less useful kind.

      The less expensive and complicated kind (there is probably a name for this, involving something about light diffraction) requires two laserbeams of equal wavelength and phase, one to light up the object, and one as a reference laser for the film. To display the hologram, it needs to be lit by the reference laser in the exact same angle and wavelength.
      I have actually made a hologram of this kind myself.

      The more complicated and expensive kind of hologram does not require a reference laser to display it, but is harder to make. I'd be surprised if it took less than an hour to make a holographic image using this technique, so realtime cinema is out of the question. Also, I don't see how this stuff could be projected.
  • I can see 3d images with my trusty red and blue paper glasses!

    -dk

    • Re:3d images (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can't.

      My eyes don't convergence where my eyes focus, except for really close objects. Its quite a common problem, and should not be ignored, I keep wondering how I and others will cope when holograms become more common. It's similiar to colour blindness now.
  • Actually I was thinking about 4D, as in hypercubes [dogfeathers.com], and trying to wrap my mind around the idea of what it would be like for someone in the 3 dimensional world to suddenly be transported to a 4 dimensional world. I wondered if the perceptions that person would have would be of the fourth spatial dimension or merely three dimensional representations of the fourth dimension.

    Ford's plan to use three dimensional imaging to showcase cars is much like a thought I had today regarding the layout of my desk. I don't have one of those flat desks [indianafurniture.com] that are so common with executives. Rather, I have a few shelves and cubby holes to hold my stuff. I was trying to think of a way to organize all of it without actually pulling everything out of its place, and at that point I thought about modeling it on the computer using a CAD [autocad.com] program. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those here at work and no one is likely to spring for one either, so I have to do it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.

    That's when it hit me. Why *isn't* there a three dimensional modeling program that can help lay out desktops? People rearrange their desktops all the time, whether to clean them off or to simply change the scenery. I didn't want to duplicate any effort that may have already gone into this so I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot, but apparently it's not edgy enough or something.

    Can anyone help me? Is there a 3 dimensional modeling tool for laying out desktops?
    • Hey pal, let me guess; when you're at work, you're just bored out of your mind, right?

      Dreaming about CAD-modelling your desktop is one of the classic symptoms of OBNHETD (Office Boredom by Not Having Enough To Do).

      Another classic symptom is surfing slashd - WHAT - wait - maybe I should make a CAD-model of my desktop
    • There is a program that gives you a 3D desktop in windows. It's called "3DTop" and you can get it here:

      http://www.3dtop.com/

      There is also a 3D program to view websites with, allowing you to have walls of browsers in a VR room, called Buzz3d and you can find that here:

      http://www.buzz3d.com/

      I'd make these into links but since I can't use the [url] [/url] deal and make it work, and since the people who run slashdot don't seem to find it necessary to have any help on the subject of message formatting, or even a damned button to do it for you, I guess you'll just have to copy and paste.
      • I somehow missed reading the middle paragraph of your post and thought you were talking about the windows desktop. Anyhow, the programs are still neat and it seems like you do have some time on your hands, so check it out.
    • "...idea of what it would be like for someone in the 3 dimensional world to suddenly be transported to a 4 dimensional world."

      Wouldn't a 4d object cast a 3d shadow? I mean, a 3d object casts a 2d shadow and a 2d object cast a 1d shadow. No?

      • Re:I was just thinking about 3D (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Unfortunately the shadow from a 2d object is also 2d, so your theory needs a little work :)
        • > Unfortunately the shadow from a 2d object is also 2d, so your theory needs a little work :)

          It actually depends on the subspace you're talking about. If you're talking about a 3d subspace (which I assume you are), the shadow of a 2d object can be either 1d or 2d, depending on the angle of the light to the surface of the 2d object. (if the light hits edge on, it casts a 1d shadow)

          In a 2d subspace, objects only cast 1d shadows, because there is no "sideways" in which the light can hit the flat part of the surface. The 2d light source is always edge on to the 2d object occupying the same plane.
    • Umm, the 4th Dimension is Time.
  • Customers include Boeing (BA), Exxon (XOM), and Ford (F), not to mention the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica, which recently bought a life-size hologram of the legendary reggae king.

    "Dude, let's get stoned and stare at the hologram!" =)

    This is often the way the economy works: (1)Company creates a new technology. (2) Rich people immediately find a flippant/sketchy use for it. (3)Company makes money from them, uses it to refine their technology. (4) Technology eventually gets better and cheaper to produce. It becomes ubiquitous.

    Case in point, the camcorder. Rich/sketchy people spend thousands on them to create homemade porn and artsy black and white existential movies. Tech. improves, it gets cheaper, and now a decent camcorder is in the $150 range.

  • You definitely need something to project a hologram on to. It doesn't just work with thin air. (Air's invisible, remember?)
    The only solution for a real walkaround 3D hologram I could think of would be some kind of plexiglas bubble filled with smoke of something other half translucent (to let the lasers through)/half "lightable" (to catch the light and reflect it for the eyes).
    Am I making sense or what?
    • I dont remember where I read it, but I thought that there was a project involving creating a point of light at the intersection of 3 beams, where the beams were not visible and the point of light appeared to be floating in mid air

      Does anyone else remember that?
    • I could have SWORN that this had already been done right; I remember reading about a big fish tank-ish structure, filled with liquid in which phosphorescent particles were suspended, and multiple red, green and blue lasers above and below the tank, intersect 2 lasers at a certain point and that point glows red, green, blue, whatever, the particles glowed for a few milliseconds, long enough so that when the proper 3d shape was traced, it generated a 3d image.
      I recall the frame rate sucked, something like 1 per 2 seconds.
      Anyone else recall this? it was maybe 4 years ago, had something to do with a japanese car company, I think... I've done a relatively complete search, came up with nothing.
      If I just dreamed it, consider this trademarked prior art.
  • Rather than using holographs, Ismo Rakkolainen has created a screen [cs.tut.fi] in the air using a low-cost air-blower, drinking straws, plastic tubing, cardboard boxes, and some liquid nitrogen. It may not be 3D, but I think it could be just as useful and much less expensive to create than a true hologram.

    Anwyay, before we try to make 3D representations of objects in the air we should try to make them in 2D reliably. We had to learn to walk before we ran, now didn't we?

  • 'It's almost exactly like that scene in the original Star Wars where R2D2 ran a movie of Princess Leia saying 'Help me Obi Wan.'

    I'm afraid not. The image does not move and you can't walk very far around it. Where the reflected beam and the reference beam interfere, you get the same distribution of light you might get off the original 3-D object. However, the image only extends to the edge of the holographic plate. Wander around to the front of the car and it disappears. Go around to the other side of where the car ought to be, and it stays gone, because there is nothing solid bouncing the light back.

    Is this a real bit of kit, and if so, why don't they show a photograph of it?

    • Possible walkaround... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Scratch-O-Matic ( 245992 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @08:36AM (#3813414)
      Several years ago I went to a store in Hong Kong that sold high-end holograms. I'm pretty sure I saw a tube-shaped film that you could walk completely around. These type of holograms can theoretically be made on any shape of film (flat, curved, tubular, etc.) The only problem is exposing the entire surface of the object to the two portions of the split laser beam.

      For what it's worth, I messed around with holograms in high school. My physics teacher (Tommy Toor, Lyman High School) let me take home the lab's hologram kit, including the laser! How cool is that! (This was 1984...they didn't have laser pointers back then, at least not cheap ones; this laser was about the size of an extra large box of tin foil.) Anyway, you could make two types of holograms: reflection and transmission.

      The reflection holograms were the low-quality types you see on credit cards and cd cases. They were pretty flat, but you could view them in ordinary light.

      The transmission holograms were much more dramatic. You had to view them through a piece of transparent film illuminated by laser from behind. The object would appear to be beyond the film, rather than on the surface. These are the types that you see in museums and some high-end stores (don't know if they've come up with a way to view them without the laser?) Most of us have seen how you can move from side to side and get a different view as if the object was really there, even to the extent of "unmasking" hidden contours as you move. But a little known fact is that you can cut up the film and each piece still contains the image. Think of covering up different parts of a window: you can still see an object placed outside, but you have to position yourself in a different place to see it. Same with a transmission hologram. If you cut the film in quarters and give them to your friends, they could each see the object. One would have to look down and to the left, one looks down and to the right, etc. Very cool.

      Anyway, the technology described in the article sounds like high-quality, quickly produced transmission holograms. Star Wars-style holograms will require some sort of 3-D medium as discussed above.
      • Sounds like what they used in Logan's Run [imdb.com]

        The images moved too.
      • Was that Lyman High in Longwood?

      • Holograms called "integrals" have been possible for decades. (They are featured in the 70's cheesoid flick Logan's Run) They are traditionally made from motion picture film, with the subject on a rotating platform. Each frame of film produces a single vertical strip hologram. These integrals produce horizontal parallax, but no vertical.

        So, is this just a cheaper way to make bigger integrals, or have they solved the knotty problem of getting vertical parallax as well? If the former, OK, but yawn. If the latter, that's pretty impressive. It's conceivably possible to do, but I can't find anything in the article that makes it clear.

  • Imagine what this could do if somebody figures out how to create a holographic live webcam - and then couples it with cyberdildonics....
    Wanted: One rich investor to pay me for developing it. A lot of hot uninhibited girls who are not morally opposed to being monetarilly exploited.
    Come join my soon to exist, dynamic company as we strive to bring the world the ultimate in relationship ruination.
  • I remember at the Disneyland "Innoventions" thing, Silicon Graphics had this face scanner that would map someone's face into a 3-D object onscreen, and then manipulate it and whatever. While relatively old technology, not only could the new holographic methods be used to display nonphysical prototypes, it could also be used in conjunction with an object scanner to communicate dimensions and depth of existing objects in a more real form from a great distance.
    • Damn dude, you are one integrated slashgeek. Get it over at think geek did ya? Did it hurt when they yanked out the wires at the airport?

      for those of you that don't get the dumb humor, read the title of the post again.

      -1 obvious

  • Company behind it (Score:4, Informative)

    by jrest ( 539296 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @04:53AM (#3812962)
    Zebra Imaging [zebraimaging.com] is the company behind it all. Might be slashdotted already...
  • Back in the late '70s the Ontario Science Center in Toronto had an example of walk-around hologram. It was actually done as multiple verticle hologram strips done duch that, as you walked around, you'd see multiple shifting shapes.

    In this case it was a girl in her underwear squirming out of her panties.
    ...All funded by government money and admission fees.

    Not that I minded, of course.

    • > ...girl in her underwear squirming out of her panties
      Of course you know that the Google Image search [google.com] for Ontario Science Center is totally slashdotted now.
  • Jokes about porn aside, the thing that'll bring holographic TV and so on to your living room will be the porn industry.

    They seem to have been behind most other home-entertainment systems recently, and so, let's hope the porn industry DOES get interested in this.

    • Re:Porn (Score:2, Funny)

      by DarkHelmet ( 120004 )
      Help me Ron Jeremy! You're my only hope!
    • Yes, we all know that DVD and 5.1 channel surround-sound have only been adopted because of the infinite possibilities of the massive porn DVD industry, nothing to do with the inherent quality and convenience of the format itself.

  • They're using state-of-the art hologram technology to visualize, um, an internal combustion fossil fuel-burning car. Ain't entrenchment a blast?

    Next, we'll be using sophisticated CAD simulations to design the latest generation of high-performance vehicles [lfx.org].

  • All I got was this lousy t-shirt (Score:5, Informative)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @05:49AM (#3813072)
    Cool aspects: instead of needing a physical object to make a hologram you can now use a transparent LCD screen. You can also make your hologram any size you want because instead of a single exposed but if film the hologram is made from little 2"x2" tiles.

    Misleading aspects of the story: This is not Star Wars technology come to life. Neither Princess Leia nor Queen Amidala will be hovering in mid-air begging someone for help. There's no motion involved in these holograms unless successive tiles have an animated image. The only way you'll get animation of any sort is the same way you get it out of the baseball cards printed with the plastic ribbing. Each viewing angle gives you a different instance frame. These images do not hover in mid-air either, their focal point is behind the surface of the view window.

    The sort of volumetric projection in Star Wars is not possible without some super fancy technology to bend light rays once they hit a certain point in space. You need something for the photons to hit and change direction in, like glass. The people at Dimensional Media (www.3dmedia.com [3dmedia.com]) have a system like this. They take a bunch of 2D slices and project them at high speed onto a piece of glass. Each of the 20 or so slices they use is a slightly different perspective on the 3D image. These are run through a beam splitter and projected onto a set of mirrors that projects onto a glass plate. The image seems to float behind the glass plate and as you move from side to side you're seeing one of the slightly different perspective slices. It is cool technology that might be getting somewhere because DMA has won a couple awards for their technology and got a research grant from somebody in January. I don't work for them or anything I've just run across lots of articles about them in the past 6 years and looked into their technology when I began to research building a home made volumetric projection system. While Zebra Imaging has a cool tech for static holograms I'm much more interested in realtime volumetric projection. My interest in holography lasted about as long as the power supply for my HeNe laser.
    • >Queen Amidala will be hovering in mid-air begging someone for help.

      You've been reading my wish book again, sir.

    • volumetric displays (Score:3, Informative)

      by TMB ( 70166 )

      For those interested in true volumetric displays, this [infovis.net] is a nice overview of the current state.

      [TMB]

    • According to Zebra Imaging's web site, the images do appear in front of the film, hovering in mid air.
    • The sort of volumetric projection in Star Wars is not possible without some super fancy technology to bend light rays once they hit a certain point in space. You need something for the photons to hit and change direction in, like glass.

      One way this could be made possible, using technology that isn't here yet, is what I'd call a "nanocloud display". When you turn the thing on, a vent opens and out comes zillons of tiny nanites, which look sort of like flying disco balls under the microscope. The nanites would each be able to fly, using tiny thrusters, propellers, fly wings, whatever. They would also be covered with lots of red, green and blue colored mirrors (or you could have separate red, green and blue colored nanites) which each have little servos on them that can adjust the mirrors' angles, or even hide the mirrors completely.

      When the unit is programed to display something, the nanites fly themselves into a 3-d grid formation, and adjust their mirrors so that a light that is shone on them reflects at a programmed angle. Voila, instant volumetric display, with views that change arbitrarity as the viewing angle changes (assuming enough nanites to cover all voxels from all potential angles.) Help me Obiwan Kenobi, you're my only hope! The problem is that a gust of wind may screw up your display, and scatter your precious nanites to the 4 winds.

      Of course, this requires technology that we don't have yet.

  • I'm confused.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This technology can be used to picture pr0n jokes?
  • This has been in the works [cardesignnews.com] since December of 2000.

    Google-returned links to (hologram) images are Here [cardesignnews.com] and here [cloud9.net].

    -Berj
  • They have already used systems like CAD-CAM and other 3D modeling programs to do the same thing on a computer screen. Using the arrow keys you could rotate the image around, zoom in or out, and of course, modify it as you liked. The advantage of using a hologram is limited here. A better useage would be a holographic projection of a patients body in the hospital, allowing doctors to watch the effects of their work as they go along.
  • FORD: F*cked Over, Rebuilt DeathStar... I get it... I finally get it!
  • From further down in the artile:

    "Forget about Princess Lela and 3-D videoconferencing."

    Maye they were thinking of Leela from Futurama...

  • video (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kraft ( 253059 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @07:08AM (#3813211) Homepage
    Here is a competitors site with video: litiholo gallery [litiholographics.com]

    Should be possible to find more here [google.com]
  • This is a funny coincidence -- In the new Star Wars Episode II cereal (Which is very good, by the way), the box looks quite normal with Obi-Wan on it.

    However, after turning off one of my lights, a large hologram was illuminated, and it looked spectacular!

  • My lame porn joke (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by twitter ( 104583 )
    3D and porn, why? Most porn lacks depth.
  • "No."

    The article is worthless - they wrote a page of words on the basis that some guys down at Ford are printing "holograms" (ie the decal type silver foil things) from CGI instead of images captured by bouncing light off real objects. Just what is their point? Exactly? Alternative titles for the article include:-

    "Man does exactly the same thing with holograms as usual"

    "No change on the holgram front"

    Or as Christopher Lloyd says in Star Trek III:-

    "Nothing happening here!, Kruge out!".

    Truly, this is not the article you are looking for - move along.

  • ... that if I expose my computer to six holograms of Michael York's head [stellar-database.com] the computer will explode?

  • has anyone seen it before? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chimpslice ( 580971 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2002 @08:45AM (#3813469) Journal
    perhaps this is off-topic, but as a kid I used to visit my grandfather when he worked at RCA in Princeton, this was circa 1980. He'd take me around to all of his scientist buddies and show me the cool stuff they were working on. I remember big lasers (whoa), lots of weird laser-disc storage media, primitive green pixel-ly flat televisions, and they also had a short holgraphic film loop. It was tiny, maybe six inches tall, and it was a silvery image of guys playing football that could be viewed from several angles. I hadn't heard of anybody whipping them out again until now. Having been 9 at the time I had no idea how it worked. This was the last thing I'd witnessed as a child that I hadn't yet seen as an adult.
  • This is pretty cool, but the real breakthrough in product design technology is stereolithography. A way of making real object by using layered exposure of photopolimers to laser light, extreemly cool and (now) pretty expensive. It allows to make true to life models extreemly fast.

    there is some info here - a commercial site.
  • Okay, I admit I haven't read the article. (Whaddya expect? I just rolled out of bed a few minutes ago, and I'm only surfing Slashdot right now to avoid going to work.)

    Nevertheless, I'm having a hard time understanding why this kind of hologram would be more useful than, say, a VR wall or room? I've seen some of SGI's demos of 3D visualization technology using Onyxes or Octanes, projectors, and stereo glasses. Granted, those images aren't truly volumetric, so you can't put your finger into them or anything... but the same is true of these holograms we're talking about. They only appear to be volumetric.

    And a VR environment like that has the benefit of being in full color, with full interactive animation and whatnot. You can use the wireless mouse thingy to "grab" the model and rotate it on any axis, with frame rates from 120 all the way down to a few per second, depending on the complexity and the oomph behind your computer system. Sounds a lot cooler and more useful than a static hologram image to me.

    I dunno. I guess I'm just not as dazzled by the word "hologram" as I was when I was seven. ;-)
  • "Hump me Obi Wan, you're my only hope!"
  • I don't know if anyone else noticed but the company who did the little image explaining how it worked was called XPLANE.

    Now in the spirit of capitalism (not allowing this XPLANE company get a monopoly on cheezy diagrams) and the tradition of Riki Ricardo of "I Love Lucy", I propose its time some of us get together and start our own company named SPLANE. Our motto could be that "We got some SPLANE'n to do" or maybe just "Bobaloo".
  • Information Week recently ran a piece [informationweek.com] on the major IT transition at General Motors. While not using this kind of hologram technology, they are making good use of projected 3-D models combined with VR headsets.

    Here's [informationweek.com] a little more detail on the system and how to use it to frighten children. (And no, it doesn't involve 3-D displays of Pontiac Azteks....) If you read this article, note the slip of the car name...the article says it's "Solaris", when it it's actually "Solstice"
  • People here who are "bashing" this don't seem to understand why this technology is being used.

    VR systems (both immersive HMD systems as well as "CAVE" type displays) are good for "walkthroughs", "walkarounds", even "testing" (such as for ergonomic placement of controls, or viewing angles from seats, etc) - but neither technology (as of yet) allows for "real size" views.

    Most VR systems do NOT represent the objects in a one-to-one unit basis - most of the time the virtual world is scaled or distorted in some manner. This is normally because of the viewing system used - with an HMD, if the objects were represented at real scale and perspective, things would look slightly odd (especially in the higher-res, low FOV HMDs). CAVEs tend to distort things as well to fit the projection screens and minimize the distortions at the wall joining edges. Lower-res, high FOV HMDs can't be used, because resolution is lost, and thus accuracy for measurement. HMDs do not allow for real rulers, only virtual ones. CAVEs allow for real rulers, but if the image is slightly distorted, it is useless for engineers. Another thing against HMDs and CAVEs is "simulator sickness"...

    I am not saying that either technology is completely useless - there are aspects that make both appealing for engineering use, but prototype display for design reconfiguration probably isn't one of them. I also think that the accuracy could be preserved, but it would be expensive. I think at some point the tech will come down in price to allow this.

    However, this hologram technology allows for the fast "duplication" of a CAD/CAM drawing (which may or may not be represented in real size on a monitor) into a medium that allows the engineers (and non-engineers!) to view at real size, as well as (possibly) take real size measurements using real measuring equipment. The hologram in this case is a real size volumetric image of a virtual design. It is probably the fastest method of rapid prototyping for large scale objects that we will have for a while.

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