Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

True 3D Real-Time Holography

True 3D real-time holography has been demonstrated at the MIT Media Lab by Michael Bove's Object-Based Media group. Take a look at the following video for a demonstration, which uses the Kinect system to enter 3D data into the system.


(The Rebellion adopts Kinect hardware)

"This video shows the creation of a moving hologram of a person. So, we have in this conference room Princess Leia, and Princess Leia's video is being captured by a Kinect camera attached to an ordinary laptop. The laptop is sending the information over the Internet to another PC using an ordinary graphics card to calculate the hologram in real-time.

Because it's a hologram, it is three-dimensional, and one doesn't need to wear glasses to see it as 3D and one can move one's head to see around the object; this is called motion parallax and it's not true of ordinary television.

In this instance, the Kinect is being used as a cheap, off-the-shelf 3D camera. It works out the position of each pixel in three dimensions and conveys this information to the PC. The PC has three GPU based graphics cards which then compute the interference patterns needed to create the wavefront. The computation results in only 15 frames per second.

The display is a special device developed by students of Stephen Benton, a pioneer of holographic imaging who died in 2003.

The one component of the researchers’ experimental system that can’t be bought at an electronics store for a couple hundred dollars is the holographic display itself. It’s the result of decades of research that began with MIT’s Stephen Benton, who built the first holographic video display in the late 1980s. (When Benton died in 2003, Bove’s group inherited the holographic-video project.) The current project uses a display known as the Mark-II, a successor to Benton’s original display that both Benton’s and Bove’s groups helped design. But Bove says that his group is developing a new display that is much more compact, produces larger images, and should also be cheaper to manufacture. (Bove and his students reported on an early version of the display at the same SPIE conference four years ago.)

Mark Lucente, director of display products for Zebra Imaging in Austin, Texas, which is commercializing holographic displays for videoconferencing applications, says that his company’s prospective customers are often uncomfortable with the sheer computational intensity of holographic video. “It’s very daunting,” he says. “1.5 gigabytes per second are being generated on the fly.” By demonstrating that off-the-shelf components can keep up with the computational load, Lucente says, Bove’s group is “helping show that it’s within the realm of possibility.” Indeed, he says, “by taking a video game and using it as an input device, [Bove] shows that it’s a hop, skip and a jump away from reality.”

When the Media Lab researchers demonstrate their new technology at the conference in San Francisco, another grad student in Bove’s group, Edwina Portocarrero, sporting a cowled tunic and a wig with side buns, will re-enact the scene from the first Star Wars movie in which a hologram of Princess Leia implores Obi-Wan Kenobi to re-join the battle against the evil empire. The resolution of the real hologram won’t be nearly as high as that of the special-effects hologram in the movie, but as Bove points out, “Princess Leia wasn’t being transmitted in real time. She was stored.”

The scene is, of course, a deliberate recreation of the inspiring movie scene from the original Star Wars film.


(Help me, Obiwan Kenobi - you're my only hope)

From I-Programmer and MIT press release; thanks to Adi for the tip on this story.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/1/2011)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )

Related News Stories - (" Display ")

Transparent 4K OLED Wireless TV From LG
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!

DOTPad Braille Device Offers Live Access
Amazing tactile display.

Transparent MicroLED Screen From Samsung
Has Samsung nailed the Look of Things To Come?

Augmented Reality Book Covers Reveal The Inner Book
'The E-paper holograms leaped from lurid covers...' - Greg Bear, 2003.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'

Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars?
'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'

Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'

When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'

China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'

Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'

Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'

Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'

Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.

Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'

Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'

Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'

Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'

Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'

Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'

Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.