
The Looking Glass – Holographic Display - kgwxd
https://i.lookingglassfactory.com/
======
ericskiff
I've seen this thing in real life and it's astounding.

In the early versions, it was clear that the magic was happening by projecting
slices onto the surface of multiple sheets of plexiglass.

In this production version, the glass is 100% transparent, and the slices of
image appear to be a seamless 3D whole. Aside from the fact that it's not in
open air, it's just like looking at a real hologram. As you move your head,
you're seeing a different point of view, and the object looks like it is
really inside that block of glass moving around.

I don't think I've seen any consumer gadget that seems so thoroughly from the
future in the last 10 years.

~~~
calhoun137
> Aside from the fact that it's not in open air

I once put a lot of work into researching how to build an "open air" 3d
hologram like they have in the movies and came to the conclusion that it is
basically against the laws of physics. This is because its impossible to bend
light beams in free space.

There are however a lot of cool tricks and hacks, 3d holograms are a really
cool subject, this Looking Glass product looks fantastic I want one.

One of the biggest problems these kinds of holograms in a box have is, even
though horizontal scrolling works fine, being able to look at it from the top
and bottom does not. Here [1] is a video of a 3d hologram in a box based on a
rotating mirror that has a head tracker for viewing from different vertical
angles. It's really cool but the thing rotates so fast it's also extremely
dangerous.

Another approach for open air 3d holograms is to create a series of small
explosions that emit light by shooting dangerous high powered lasers into the
air and using plasma emission. See [2]

Finally here is a cool video of some fan based holograms [3]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gvPS1m40gw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gvPS1m40gw)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfVS-
npfVuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfVS-npfVuY)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjvq0SNczrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjvq0SNczrI)

~~~
colordrops
* against the laws of engineering.

There's no reason we couldn't come up with something creative once the
technology was there. For instance, a magnetic field could keep matrix of tiny
particles in the air that could be targeted with lasers that cause the
particles to emit light.

There's already something along those lines, heating the air enough to form
plasma:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkZcFWgr4Q](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkZcFWgr4Q)

Very primitive and limited but certainly a proof of concept.

Edit: ugh, this is what happens when you don't read a comment fully before
replying.

~~~
mlevental
> For instance, a magnetic field could keep matrix of tiny particles in the
> air that could be targeted with lasers that cause the particles to emit
> light.

irony: this is in fact "against the laws of physics"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem)

~~~
akiselev
Yeah, I think what he means to say is ultra minituarized matrix of billions of
high powered phased arrays all synchronized to keep billions of charged
aerogel-type mm^2 "pixels" with a different angle of refraction as you rotate
it and a different excitation at different ... just make it up as you go
along, its decades away at best!

~~~
colordrops
Sounds like you've thought about it though. If we can imagine it, perhaps it's
possible. Could anyone have believed that we could control the color of
millions of tiny dots on a thin flat surface 100 years ago?

My point is that to say that it's against the laws of physics is as ridiculous
as my imaginations of what is possible.

------
peteforde
I was a Kickstarter backer, and have been developing experiments on it nearly
full-time since it arrived about a week before Christmas. It was, amusingly,
the first time I've tracked a package minute-to-minute since we used to watch
Santa's progress via NORAD on Christmas Eve.

The crazy thing is that the hype was justified: it is pure magic. There's lots
of negative peanut gallery elsewhere in this thread; they are just wrong and
totally missing the point of what this team and device have accomplished,
which is delivering a genuinely novel experience out-of-the-box, for about
$500, with both a reasonable selection of samples on launch day AND a proper
Unity SDK with good examples. It's one of those rare crowdfunded projects that
shipped exactly on time (!), the drivers work, and the support forum is full
of helpful people who reply to questions in a timely manner.

My only regret is that I didn't spring for the opportunity to buy a 15" for
$2000 when I had the chance.

~~~
kgwxd
Did you get the leap with it too? If so, do you think that's worth the extra
$100?

~~~
peteforde
Coincidentally, I backed the Leap on Kickstarter back in 2011 or whenever it
was, as well. They've updated the software but never [needed?] to release a v2
of their hardware.

My reply on this is: it's a mixed bag, and while several of their launch demos
indeed make use of Leap, I was somewhat surprised by the degree to which there
seems to be an undercurrent of disdain for it in the Looking Glass ecosystem,
which is still small enough to be a first-name basis kind of affair. (eg it's
a perfect time to get in on something verified awesome)

From my perspective as a Unity dev, getting the Leap integration working was
the hardest part. In fact, if I'm honest, I gave up before succeeding.

Here's the double-edged sword: apparently, getting 1:1 mapping between the
Leap and whatever you're building is tricky... but kids freaking love it. So,
if you're looking to get young people excited or planning to build something
that only makes sense with a Leap, then sure... go for it.

However, it's tiring to use for long periods and I find only half-good at
continuously tracking fingers. Good news is that there's apparently SDK
support coming for depth cameras which could go a long way towards replacing
the need for the Leap in the ecosystem. It seems like the hard thing which
Leap figured out was the identification of fingers and gesture tracking.
There's lots of devices out there which can do cool depth or time-of-flight
sensing, but you still have to process a stream and make sense of it in near-
realtime. So for a $100 gadget that does a 70% good job of this without a lot
of coding smarts required, Leap was ahead of its time.

Sorry, I know this was a bit all over the place and I sound like I'm waffling.
Perhaps it comes down to a combination of "is $100 a big deal to you?" \+ "do
you imagine building apps that rely on gesture control?" \+ "are you patient
when it comes to iterative troubleshooting and integration in Unity?"

~~~
kgwxd
Thanks, that was very informative. I think I'll just get the display and get
the leap separate if I find myself wanting. It's only $90 on it's own anyway.
The extra $10 for the case and cleaning cloth is cool, but it's never going to
leave my desk so I'm not worried about transport and I already have several
microfiber cloths.

~~~
samatman
YAGNI is a great rule of thumb but I gotta say: I always make an exception for
cases, and I've always been right about that thus far.

------
chasing
The effect is really cool -- I've seen these in person.

It's like a really well-done, high-resolution take on those lenticular plastic
3D images. It does look truly volumetric as long as you're kind of roughly in
front of it. But if you go too far off to the side the effect breaks down a
bit.

Inexpensive 3D displays that don't require eye-tracking a la the Nintendo 3DS
would be quite a nifty development.

~~~
petermcneeley
I did my own version of the lenticular 3D this as hobby project. You need
quite a high resolution (density) display. You also need to configure the
output very accurately so that it corresponds to the final desired image for
each eye. Because of how an LCD displays color you this is an even more
complex translation.

However the advantage of eyetracked lenticular over "The looking glass" would
be resolution. (there might be other FOV and effect distance advantages as
well)

~~~
darkmighty
With lenticular arrays you don't even need eye tracking (in theory), since you
can directly synthesize a geometric light field (that is, a bundle of rays
around each point with different colors for every direction), but you'd
probably need quite a few pixels per lens. If the lenses are <1mm diameter,
and you need say >10x10 pixels per lens, that's at least 100ppcm, or >250ppi,
preferably a lot more. Latest phones do seem to reach that level.

In the end the satisfaction level needs to be evaluated experimentally of
course, I wonder how nice one would be with current technology (say, an iPad
Pro display), did you build a prototype?

~~~
petermcneeley
Yes I built a prototype. You can order lenticular sheets online. I have an
iPad Pro but the distance between the LCD to the screen surface is too great
to use normal lenicular sheets. A 4k small laptop screen would likely be
enough for clean binocular separation however I only had a 1080p 10inch
display. While this is difficult at the hobby level this already seems to be
widely commercially available
[http://www.alioscopy.com/en/3Ddisplays.php](http://www.alioscopy.com/en/3Ddisplays.php)

~~~
darkmighty
Interesting how they're marketing it: as a glasses-free 3D display instead of
a holographic (lightfield or w/e) display. That's probably due to the chosen
field of view and resolution tradeoff, where you can see only a narrow field
of view and angular variation is small (so there are less artifacts, better
image quality/"resolution") -- it's a quasi-binocular range field.

However, this seems like a poor strategy: most people already know 3D
(binocular) displays and there's not much demand for it, I bet few people
would be willing to pay significantly more for lower quality just to get rid
of glasses (for those who even crave binocular content). Compare to the
potential of having wide viewing angle holograms (even if a little fuzzy) in
your living room.

Unrelated: Your blog posts are awesome and you should submit more often to HN
;)

------
kgwxd
I found this through the Voxatron [1] blog [2]. Looks like they support it
now. I think a setup like that would really hype kids up to design and
program.

[1] [https://lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php](https://lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php)
[2]
[https://lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=32743](https://lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=32743)

~~~
aquova
This was my first exposure to it as well, I follow the developer of
Voxatron/Pico-8 on Twitter and they were posting videos of it in action a few
months ago [1].

Voxatron got an update recently that is beginning to show a lot of promise,
but it's still a bit incomplete to make anything more than neat visual scripts
or basic drag-and-drop games. However, I would be very excited to see the
platform develop further, and to try out a Looking Glass for myself (they're
far too rich for my blood for the time being).

[1]
[https://twitter.com/lexaloffle/status/1027606480030117890](https://twitter.com/lexaloffle/status/1027606480030117890)

~~~
mhb
_far too rich for my blood_

I thought $400 was surprisingly reasonable.

~~~
kgwxd
$499 (let's say $500 to avoid the mental rounding down bias), +$100 if you
want the Leap Motion, +$25 tax, + $50 shipping. My cart is at $673.92 USD.
Having a hard time clicking "Checkout", but I'm not leaving the site yet :)
Still seems reasonable in my opinion.

------
zik
This isn't actually "holographic" as such. Holography [1] specifically refers
to creating a 3d effect by recording light diffraction and interference
wavefronts. At this point though the term has become so corrupted that most
people think that holography means any kind of 3d display without glasses -
which is definitely not what holography is.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography)

~~~
Aeolun
If everyone thinks that’s what Holography means, then for most intents and
purposes, that’s pretty much what it means.

~~~
gcbw2
I can't say if it is a clever pun that you made up the meaning of the word
"everyone" to exclude the author of the post you replied to.

------
bane
In case anybody is interested, this video recording of a demoscene production
on one does a pretty good job of showing how it looks.

[http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78756](http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78756)

I've seen one in real life and the left-right 3d is great, and in many cases
it looks like there's a solid, low-res object floating inside the box. There's
no up-down movement, but its surprisingly effective.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
The website UI behind your URL is maddeningly hard to navigate if you're
looking for the content. I wasn't even sure what this website was for, but it
pointed me in the direction of understanding what the demoscene is [1].

If anyone wants the link to the content, it's here:
[https://youtu.be/US7hzM0a21E](https://youtu.be/US7hzM0a21E)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)

------
proee
Reminds me of the video game way back in the 90's called "Time Traveler". This
was in the expensive section of the arcade and cost around a dollar to play -
a huge premium over the nickel machines.

My brothers and I finally decided to pooled our money together to play the
machine - the gameplay was weak but the visuals were cool!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_\(video_game\))

~~~
michaelchisari
If I remember correctly, the gameplay was similar to Dragon's Lair: Cool to
watch, infuriating to play.

------
LyalinDotCom
their website seems down (maybe thanks to HN?) but there are videos of this
you can check out on YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=looking+glass+h...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=looking+glass+holographic+display)

~~~
enjrolas
working on this now, thanks HN :)

~~~
enjrolas
Aaaand we're back

------
joantune
That's not holography, period. Let's call things by their names.

They do not build an interference pattern which models the light waves as the
object was there.. though that kind of technology isn't that far away.

As someone who used to do holograms, I was quite excited to read the headlines
- but once you read more into it - you see that it's just a trick, 'gimmick'
even if it works well - it's not pure holography, so, please, don't use that
name.

------
samstave
The only thing that was negatively conveyed in the video, is that it was
apparent that the FOV on the device is narrow...

At one point, the camera shifted and you could see the image in the device
fade out...

Also - it seems the viewing angle is fairly specific?

What would these look like mounted to a wall, perpendicular to the floor? Are
they usable?

Whats the limiting factor on size?

~~~
sp332
It's 45 views across a total of 50 degrees, that's 25 degrees off-center left
and right. And there's only a single vertical angle. What gets displayed in
those views is 100% implementation-dependent. There's no standard for how
"deep" the objects should look, and there's no standard for the vertical angle
either. So whether it will look good on a wall is content-dependent. I suspect
that most content being made specifically for the Looking Glass will have a
downward viewing angle in mind, as would be natural for having the device on a
desk in front of you.

~~~
clort
One of the other commenters suggests that it is displaying onto several layers
of glass inside the block; I didn't watch the video but I wonder if the
surfaces that it is displaying on could be curved in addition to this within
the block, so that the image has a wider field of view..

~~~
ARothfusz
It is not displaying on layers in the block. I have a 15" LookingGlass. The
depth appears continuous, not in discrete layers.

The field of view is, to me, very wide. I'm not trying to show it to an
audience and it is more than enough to immerse me. It is also important to
note that the field of view comes with parallax: you can really see around
corners. It is not just a wide field of view on the same stereo pair.

~~~
VikingCoder
It's NOT layers in the block?

What happens if you move your head up and down relative to it (vertical
angles), does the object not get vertical parallax?

~~~
sp332
It's definitely not on layers. There's a weird perspective illusion vertically
but it's not parallax and you can't "see around corners" vertically. It's a
lenticular effect, horizontal only. Check out the Vimeo holographic channel:
[https://vimeo.com/channels/thelookingglass](https://vimeo.com/channels/thelookingglass)
Each video is a 5x9 matrix and each view is a different angle. If you're
working with a 3D object and not a video it's the same deal - it has to be
rendered from 45 different perspectives and these are sent to the device
separately.

~~~
VikingCoder
It's 5x9, but that's just how it's stored, right? The actual data comes from a
linear array of 45 cameras, right? Or is it a curved array of 45 cameras along
an arc?

~~~
sp332
Right, I think a linear array would work best since it matches where your eyes
will be when you move left & right in front of the screen.
[https://lookingglassfactory.com/how-it-
works/](https://lookingglassfactory.com/how-it-works/) It shows up on HDMI as
2560x1600 but I don't know how the physical panel is laid out.

------
nkg
It looks really cool, but makes me want a real cube that you would be able to
walk around and see every angle of your 3D model.

------
beezischillin
Could you theoretically run a game like Trials from Ubisoft on something like
this? From what I understand of the technology it would be like an ideal use
case for it. Seems like an amazing experience at least in theory.

------
Feneric
How well does it work with Linux? I didn't see anything about it on the site.
It'd be neat to hook up to my laptop, but if Linux isn't supported at all
there'd be no point.

~~~
bacon_waffle
Mine should be arriving tomorrow or Monday, I'm intending to try and use it
with Linux. From what I can tell, the display more-or-less presents as a
normal 2d monitor which expects a tiled grid of views that differ in azimuth:
have a look at
[https://vimeo.com/lookingglassfactory](https://vimeo.com/lookingglassfactory)

~~~
bacon_waffle
Correction - the views are interleaved, and the details of that interleaving
depend on the calibration of your individual Looking Glass.

[https://github.com/lonetech/LookingGlass](https://github.com/lonetech/LookingGlass)
has a Python tool that grabs the calibration out of the looking glass, and an
OpenGL shader that can be used with MPlayer to take the tiled videos from the
vimeo link and display them on the LG.

It's a really cool effect in person - I'm totally glad I sprung for one!

------
tostitos1979
Is this pepper's ghost, or something different?

~~~
Ruthalas
The display volume is made up of layers of refractive material, and the
software generates 45 perspectives of the displayed model, which are refracted
to the appropriate viewing angles. [1]

Their website terms it a, "...lightfield display with volumetric
characteristics". [2]

[1] [https://youtu.be/sWevv3zotXY](https://youtu.be/sWevv3zotXY)

[2] [https://lookingglassfactory.com/how-it-
works/](https://lookingglassfactory.com/how-it-works/)

------
aerovistae
Slightly funny that the makers of one of the most cutting edge display
technologies in the world have an absolutely atrociously designed website.

~~~
partiallypro
How is it poorly designed? It looks like every other website, it sort of
resembles theverge.com. Not a fan of the bold font, but otherwise it looks no
different than any other major site.

------
joering2
Amazingly looking.. but haven't we been there before? JooJoo tablet? Anyone
remembers it? Then Apple came with iPad and JJ disappeared. What's the chances
one of XX Apple future tech Skunkworks teams are NOT working on something
similar with billions of dollars in R&D founds?

