
An Iron Man Like 3D Hologram Controlled by Leap Motion and Three.js - acrum
http://badassjs.com/post/44786596458/an-iron-man-like-3d-hologram-controlled-by-leap-motion
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jasonkolb
As cool as this is, it's not really a hologram. This is an example of Pepper's
Ghost, which is also what's used to project images into your field of vision
using Google Glass.

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ajacksified
Classic HN, pedantic comments about this not being a hologram.

You know what it is? It's a really cool demo of controlling a perceptually 3D
image using a motion controller. Let's have, say, a discussion about the
LeapMotion[1] (which is awesome, I have one) or the fact that it's using
Javascript (this looks like it is using the packaged WebGL demo[2]).

The LeapMotion is quite nice to use with WebGL / three.js.

[1] <https://github.com/leapmotion/leapjs>

[2] <https://www.leapmotion.com/>

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brador
How did you get a leap motion? What do you think of it?

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jamesbritt
I'm not ajacksified, but I have a Leap, which I got by joining the developer
program. I love it.

I've been writing about it at <http://leaphacking.com>

Leap has announced that the devices will be available to the public on May 13.

I've been hacking around using JRuby and JavaScript. It's quite nice to work
with, and so far my biggest issues are thinking through just how to handle
user movement (i.e. what hand/finger combinations and movement should equate
to what action).

It's a nice compliment to the XBox Kinect, too.

Gesture recognition has been added so I need to spend a bit of time with that
today.

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achy
This is solely a 2D image reflected in glass. The control via finger is novel,
but there is no volumetric or holographic effect whatsoever.

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uptown
That's not the actual real Earth either. We totally got him!

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ianfernz
This is one of the coolest things I have seen. I hope that this is the
direction that user interfaces goes in down the road, it is much more exciting
than 2D.

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ComputerGuru
... and much less efficient/productive.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Well, like anything different tasks will call for different UI's. After
looking at the OPs demo I could immediately see this being used with Radiology
Imaging systems.

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cdk
This is pretty awesome. This is the first time I've seen something being
projected into a prism to generate this hologram effect. Is this a new trend?

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scoot
It looks like it's being reflected off an inverted four-sided hollow
(perspex?) pyramid, rather than projected into a prism, but still a neat idea;
sort of like the inverse of the (formerly Microsoft) Polycom 360 degree
conference camera.[1]

I'm curious what it looks like viewed from one of the edges - I can't picture
it being seamless?

[1] [http://www.polycom.com/products-services/products-for-
micros...](http://www.polycom.com/products-services/products-for-
microsoft/lync-optimized/cx5000-unified-conference-station.html)

~~~
evan_
He moves the camera to another side across the edge in the video- it's far
from seamless, it's exactly as you would expect- two images in perspective.

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angryasian
While its cool, all this has been done with kinekt.

<https://github.com/doug/depthjs>

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amikahmad
this is amazing. the future of the interface indeed. forget iron man this is
more like star wars. but more seriously, i'm very interested to see what comes
next with this in terms of interaction. i'm not sure how long lived the LEAP
device will be, but this sort of holographic interaction technology certainly
has a big future!

~~~
ajacksified
The device itself is pretty solid, and there are several other companies
working on 3D motion detection (such as Intel[1], who has the lofty aim of
replacing single webcams with dual webcams.) I think this definitely has a
shot at augmenting computer interaction.

[1]
[http://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/article/325946...](http://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/article/325946/secured-
perc-productbrief-327943-001us.pdf)

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subb
So seeing this, I'm wondering, could we get a "continuous" 3d projection with
a cone-like shape instead of 4 planes?

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brador
The following is a fake video of a hologram gaming console. I hope it will
inspire someone to make it real: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaaHcH9nQmI>

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StavrosK
Since we've got the concept, we're 90% of the way there, right? I mean, all
that's left is the implementation?

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brador
Correct.

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solistice
Yes, those remaining 10% would be the other 90%.

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steven2012
I actually laughed out loud at how incredibly clever and awesome that is. This
is such a great idea and kudos to the person who designed this!

