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Good Thinking

Holovision aims at life-size 3D projections

By David Szondy
July 29, 2013
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The Holovision projector is designed to produce a life-size image of a person
One of Provision's existing 3D projectors
The Holovision projector is designed to produce a life-size image of a person

Close on the heels of the 21st century complaint of “Where’s my jetpack?” is “Where’s my holographic projector?”. Nothing spells “future” like having a conversation with someone whose life-size image is beamed into the room. Provision of Chatsworth, California wants to bring that one step closer to reality, with its Holovision life-size holographic projector. The company is currently running a Kickstarter campaign aimed at raising US$950,000 to fund the development of new technology for the projector, with hopes of unveiling it next year.

The Holovision projector uses what is called aerial or volumetric imaging, which is a way of producing 3D images without special glasses, lenses or slits. It uses a digital LCD screen and a concave mirror to produce the illusion of a 3D image floating outside the projector. In the smaller versions currently made by Provision, this is about 30 cm (12 in) from the display surface, but in the life-size Holovision, this will be further. According to Provision, this technology produces a clearer image without generating multiple views or causing dizziness or nausea.

One of Provision's existing 3D projectors

Provision is already building 3D projectors as marketing tools, but the current Kickstarter program aims at advancing the technology. Currently, the company’s largest projector can only produce an 18-in (45.7-cm) image, but the goal is to create one 6 feet (1.8 m) tall that projects 7 ft (2.1 m) from the screen and is visible within a 100-degree arc. This will require developing new optics and a new light source. Once this is achieved, Provision plans to miniaturize the system to the size of a toaster for the game console market before expanding to applications in education, medicine, video conferencing and other fields.

The Kickstarter campaign runs through August 14 and the public debut of the system is scheduled for March, 2014.

The video below introduces the Holovision technology.

Source: Kickstarter via Dvice

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David Szondy
David Szondy is a playwright, author and journalist based in Seattle, Washington. A retired field archaeologist and university lecturer, he has a background in the history of science, technology, and medicine with a particular emphasis on aerospace, military, and cybernetic subjects. In addition, he is the author of four award-winning plays, a novel, reviews, and a plethora of scholarly works ranging from industrial archaeology to law. David has worked as a feature writer for many international magazines and has been a feature writer for New Atlas since 2011.
7 comments
Raphaël de Courville
The project is highly questionable as many comments on the Kickstarter page point out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lifesizehologram/life-size-hologram/comments
EddieG
No mention made of Asimov, of course, who conceived this.
Gregg Eshelman
Same "technology" as SEGA's "Time Traveler" game from 1991 and the only other game made for the hardware, "Holosseum" from 1992.
This outfit is doing the same thing as the Bicymple, taking something old that was a flop, tweaking it a bit and trying to sell it as something new.
warren52nz
They should be able to get the porn industry to completely fund this. Sorry but you know it's true. :-)
Ashtom1
Specifically to their 3D technology, one big assumption that they have abstracted from is: In order to perceive these images as 3D user needs to be outside of their projection arrangement. If there was a person inside that box that shows 3D he would not see 3D at all, you need to be outside. This means that you cannot have room size 3D and be in that room using this technology.
Raphaël de Courville
“HOLOVISION: A Life Size Hologram (Suspended) is the subject of an intellectual property dispute and is currently unavailable.”
The DMCA notice is brutal...
“this is a warning to Kickstarter to start sling a better job of proof reading each project before being submitted since it seems like no one at Kickstarter cares about allowing scam artists post projects that violates several laws”
This guy is not very good at proof reading either, but it's still pretty funny.
https://www.kickstarter.com/dmca/holovision-a-life-size-hologram-submitted-by-hollywood-pictures
JohnSawyer
This is pretty scammy. They claim to be working on volumetric imaging, but they show as their starting point a device which has absolutely nothing to do with volumetric imaging: a small box which contains a projector that shines a two-dimensional image onto a concave mirror inside the box, which simply makes the projected image look like it's floating off of the surface of the mirror. The image is only seen when you're looking at the mirror inside the box--no part of the image is visible outside the circumference of the mirror. In addition to that, this trick works well only when the item being reflected from the mirror is an actual 3D object inside the box (you can buy these now), since as you move around, you see the object from different angles, but when a 2D image is projected onto the mirror, it's still 2D--the fact that it seems to be floating in space off of the surface of the mirror (and this effect is only inside the box) is its only claim to a dimensionality effect. This device can only simulate the aspect of dimensionality that's normally perceived as you move around an object, by showing a moving image instead of allowing the viewer to do the moving around. This approach doesn't achieve a true 3D image, or even effect, because that can only be achieved if it's the viewer moving around, not the image. They're claiming that a mirror can produce a 3D image from a 2D image projected onto it, when we all know that even true 3D objects reflected by a mirror don't produce a volumetric, 3D image of those objects nearby--you see what's reflected from a mirror only by looking directly at the mirror, and that reflection is only seen within the borders of the mirror. This device can never project a volumetric image outside of itself.
The article says that Provision points out that to achieve a true 3D projection, that "This will require developing new optics and a new light source." No kidding. In other words, they just want to develop something completely different from their little boxes, that nobody has figured out yet: how to project light that can stop in mid-air, change direction, and direct itself towards the viewer. If that's their goal, why do they lean so heavily in their promotional material on a technology that can't do what they claim they want to do?
Notice also in their video, their choice of which kinds of people to show as examples of projected 3D humans: women in provocative poses. This is an attempt to extract funding from guys who hope this will lead to 3D porn.
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