Scientists are closer than ever before to creating consumer holographic TVs. The basic technology has now been demonstrated and it’s only a matter of time before resolution, image rate, and costs, all improve to the point where you will be able to buy a 3D holographic tv online or at your local electronics store. Current predictions range from 2 – 7 years time until you will see holo-tvs on sale.
Zebra Imaging, who are currently the University of Arizona’s most bitter rivals in the race to building the first holographic tv, have created astonishing 3D holographic table maps for the American military. DARPA, the research wing of American forces, awarded Zebra Imaging the contract to produce such holographic interactive maps a few years ago, and now it appears that the company have adequately fulfilled their remit. The displays have a visual depth of up to 12 inches. You can view an example of Zebra Imaging’s incredible 3D holographic table prints below :
According to a survey of ‘television experts’ only 17% believe that holographic tv will be a reality by 2030 – nearly 20 years away!
That sounds like a pretty grim prediction, until you realise that those ‘experts’ probably don’t have a clue what they are talking about. Holographic television is so radically different to all TVs that have gone before, including the current crop of ’3D TVs’, that it’s unsurprising that they could make such a pessimistic and absurd claim. I say absurd, because at least 3 competing teams have demonstrated holographic TV as a proof of concept within the last 12 months, with the only obstacles now remaining simply increasing the image frame rate and sharpening the resolution. It seems ridiculous to hold that it will take these teams at least another 20 years or more to achieve the required resolution and speed needed to produce commercially viable holographic displays – especially given the potential billions of dollars that the winners in the race will recieve.
The only predictions that matter are those made by the real experts – those who are actually working on and building holographic TVs. And the consensus amongst them is that the first hologram displays will be ready by the end of this decade at the latest. That’s not to mention ‘pseudo-holographic’ displays which may be making their first appearance commercially by the end of this year.
source : The Future of TV (PC World)
Long before we have a ‘true’ holographic tv in our homes – a genuine 360 degree replicated moving image of a recorded object – we will likely see ‘holographic style’ screens and TVs. Such psuedo holographic images give the appearance of being real holograms because the screen can track the viewers eye movements, and adjusts the image accordingly. The result is a three-dimensional object that rotates as your eyes move – exactly in the manner as if it was a real object in front of your eyes (or a real holographic image).
Sony, Apple, and Microsoft are all working on this technology, and by all reports, all three are very close to reaching the stage of having commercial products that implement it. Such psuedo holographic tech may even render ‘real’ holographic TVs irrelevant and commercially unviable, in that the former would be far cheaper and require far less processing power and speed. The key question would be whether these holographic displays would suffer from the same drawback as stereoscopic 3D screens – eyestrain.
A team at the University of Southampton is also working on this type of holographic technology, with the main aim of using it to create life-like flawless video conferencing :
But the display technology from Hungarian firm Holografika is closer to holographic video in that the 3D image can be seen by multiple users without glasses and the picture is different depending on the viewing angle.
The challenge for the Southampton team will be to process the large amounts of data needed to create 3D images on this screen, at faster rates than existing systems, said Prof Lajos Hanzo, head of Southampton’s Communications Research Group.
‘The research we’re doing is first of all capturing the hologram in a digital format and then trying to transmit it over the ether while trying to make sure it’s accurately represented and protected against transmission errors,’ he told The Engineer.
MasterImage 3D are one of the leading developers of autostereoscopic (glasses free 3D) technology. Now they’ve gone one step further and revealed a 7″ tablet device that ‘projects’ holographic type images out of the screen. Not only that, but you can actually ‘touch’ and interact with the images!
MasterImage 3D, known in Hollywood for its 3D-projection systems, is prepping a system that allows a hologram to be projected from smartphones and tablets like the iPad.
Texting, Web browsing or anything else one does with a portable device could be done by touching a holographic image instead. The company plans to demonstrate the technology at the Mobile World Congress from Feb. 14-17 in Barcelona.
Says Roy Taylor, exec vp and GM of 3D display at MasterImage, “If you take the screen and lay it flat, it projects the holographic object around your device, and you can interact with it.”
The most obvious application is for gaming, but Taylor believes it also has merchandising uses and increases tablet users’ productivity.
It is believed that the new technology makes use of 3d depth cameras and tracking (as in the Kinect) to establish the position of and recognise the movements of the user’s hand and fingers. Thus an illusion is created that one is actually touching, or at least interacting, with a solid hologram.
Sources include http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/star-wars-like-3d-holograms-98104
A second significant milestone in the development of holographic tv has taken place this week, only a couple of months after the first moving holographic image was demonstrated. That earlier feat, achieved by a team at the University of Arizona, demonstrated live holographic video at a frame rate of once every 2 or 3 seconds. This week, a team at the MIT showed off a much simpler holographic tv system that refreshes 15 times per second. Standard television and film broadcasts transmit at 30 frames per second. The other leap forward was that the MIT’s holovideo was recorded using a single Kinect xBox camera, whereas the Arizona team shot theirs with a huge array of 16 expensive cameras.
According to the MIT researchers, the aim is not simply to demonstrate holographic video but to enable holographic tv to become both commercially viable and affordable.
Holographic TV scarcely seemed any closer 2 years ago than it did when the science of Holography was invented way back in the 1950′s. It seemed to many that real 3D holographic television would be just another staple of science fiction that would never happen. Like flying cars or trips to the moon. Well here is the latest on Holographic TV. It will be here by 2017 at the latest!
In the last couple of years scientists have suddenly made tremendous leaps forward in creating moving three-dimensional holographic images. Couple that with the explosion of interest in all things 3D, and you have both the commercial motivation and the scientific capability to make Holographic TV a reality in the very near future.