$850 Holus "holographic" display on Kickstarter, vs $2 cardboard.

[niekvs]

Interesting how this company seems to be trying to sell 4 mirrors as "3D" for $850, when both eyes are looking at exactly the same image. Calling it 3D is a pretty long stretch:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1314339634/holus-the-interactive-tabletop-holographic-display/description

Some others have noticed it as well:

https://medium.com/@sableraph/how-to-sell-a-19th-century-parlor-trick-as-a-3d-holographic-display-c12a861cb8bf

You'd probably be better off spending 2$ on a Google Cardboard, which does generate "real 3D" (in the sense that you actually see depth and can look in any direction):

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-quality-DIY-Google-Cardboard-Virtual-Reality-VR-Mobile-Phone-3D-Viewing-Glasses-for-5-0/2055604241.html

https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/

[miguelvp]

Not only that, those things have been available forever.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hologram+advertising+display&tbm=isch

[loneoceans]

Not only that, those things have been available forever.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hologram+advertising+display&tbm=isch

Yep, what miguelvp said..

[tszaboo]

Marketing and 3d renderers hard at work. Physics is not a problem. Everything for the customer's money!

[janoc]

Marketing and 3d renderers hard at work. Physics is not a problem. Everything for the customer's money!

Actually you don't need 3D CGI fakery or breaking laws of physics for this device to work, the technique is over a century old (classic Pepper's ghost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost ) and works well. There are even products using it, as mentioned before.

That doesn't excuse the dishonest marketing and rip-off price, though. But if someone buys this, I guess it is their problem ... 

[miguelvp]

At least they explain it in detail, so no deception other than people are totally unaware this things are already available, so their fault for buying something at that price.

The only thing they added is using your phone's accelerometer and position tracking to change the projected view. And that's when they claim it's a hologram.

But it's not, since there is no depth on the projection.

[Dongulus]

Marketing and 3d renderers hard at work. Physics is not a problem. Everything for the customer's money!

Actually you don't need 3D CGI fakery or breaking laws of physics for this device to work, the technique is over a century old (classic Pepper's ghost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost ) and works well. There are even products using it, as mentioned before.

That doesn't excuse the dishonest marketing and rip-off price, though. But if someone buys this, I guess it is their problem ... 

I don't argue that H+ is overselling what is an expensive toy, but I don't really see intentional misdirection. In fact, I'm surprised to see the video on their KS that describes not only how their product works, yes it is the Pepper's Ghost effect mixed with positional tracking, but they also describe how their method of holography limits the experience.



The whole shared 3D experience that this company is trying to produce is exactly the same as what Jeri, Rick, and the Technical Illusions team have been building into the CastAR except that the Holus is exceedingly inferior. Just look at the Holus; it is a rather large box which takes up most of a table in many of their promotional photos just to produce a pitifully small and awkwardly shaped display. This is fundamentally not a practical method of producing a hologram and H+ should have probably come to that realization a long time before they launched their KS.

[edit] fixed video embed

[edy]

I like the idea, it is definitely worth exploring. However, the Kickstarter campaign *IS* misleading.

If you look at Google Cardboard, it is very cheap (you can get it for $2-$20) and then download apps and see what it can do (games, stereoscopic movies, etc). I even experimented by making side-by-side stereo home movies and can watch them with Google Cardboard (stereoscopic viewers are also an old technology).

So I wouldn't mind having or even making one of these Holus pyramids, which I could probably do by buying some glass or plexiglass and cutting it into 4 identical shapes to produce the 45-degree angle square-based pyramid for the Pepper's Ghost effect. Then it is a matter of playing around in 3D software or even shooting video of an object from 4 angles and compositing the video so that it reproduces the same effect.

I understand the Holus also tries to compensate for your movement and rotates the 3D render slightly within each viewing angle so it looks more 3D as you track across the plane (when not exactly orthogonal to the glass). However, this can only work for 1 viewer at a time. There is no way you will have a classroom of kids or even 2-3 people in a family have any benefit from this feature.

***Technically they could actually do this for each of the 4 sides independently, for up to 4 users if they are sitting at different sides of the pyramid. They would need to track users on each side and feed the information back to the real-time 3D rendering engine to adjust each of the 4 views****

What's funny is that in THE REAL Pepper's Ghost illusion (like was done in the 1930's), you are actually seeing a 3D hologram because the source object being illuminated is REAL and has depth. The reflection off the mirror has parallax and 3D information.... Just like when you look in a mirror and you close one eye, then the other, you will see different angles. The mirror is FLAT but it is reflecting *YOU* a real 3D object. But the Holus is reflecting a 2D flat screen so you will never gain any parallax information and both eyes see the same flat image. So I see how the KickStarter is very misleading.

Maybe that is what they are trying to do with the lenticular lens. That would have to be superimposed on the source screen (for all 4 angles) which means they will also need to cut 4-triangles of lenticular lens material and mount it over the source screen in 4 sections (each 90-degrees oriented to the adjacent ones so they complete a full 360) and then it would provide some lenticular lens-aided parallax to occur within each view as well. This would definitely help provide different images to each eye without the need for glasses. And the head-tracking would perhaps increase the range of the effect as well by extending the rotational capability of the view (lenticular lenses alone can only do so much).

Still... if they sold 4 pieces of plexiglass or plastic and a "jig" to hold up your iPad for maybe $50 it would be worth it.

I think we should start a Kickstarter campaign called "Google Plastic" (like "Cardboard") which comes with 4 pieces of plexiglass and a frame and holder to make your own cheap Holus, and get a bunch of apps marked with a little pyramid in the corner of the app icon to indicate it works with it! Or even better, make one out of chopsticks and stick saran wrap sheets to it in a dark room!

[janoc]

The whole shared 3D experience that this company is trying to produce is exactly the same as what Jeri, Rick, and the Technical Illusions team have been building into the CastAR except that the Holus is exceedingly inferior.

Well, first of all, this isn't a hologram at all in the strict sense of the word (yes, I am a tad allergic at the widespread abuse of the term - hologram doesn't mean a 3D image floating in mid-air). Dave has a good video showing what real holograms look like.

Second, it is nothing like CastAR at all. I have had the chance to play with the CastAR prototypes last year and see some of the "Holus-like" kiosks which are commercially available. For example this one that was exhibited at Laval Virtual 2010: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/janoc/7765879//in/album/183097 - the tree is a plastic model and there are two projected guys next to it.  Moreover, this unit was using a regular data projector (not smartphone!) and was in a darkened room - you can see how washed out the projection looked. Imagine how crappy a "projection" from a smartphone display will look unless you are in a completely dark room ...

Thus I can compare a bit. The only thing these kiosks and CastAR have in common is that multiple persons can watch the image at the same time, nothing more. However, even a regular TV has that property and nobody seems to go all gaga over it ...

Technical differences aside, CastAR delivers both stereoscopic image (each eye sees a different image) and mainly it is fully tracked (both your head position and orientation). You get correct perspective cues, you can look and walk freely around and aren't constrained to watching what is essentially a mirror because you are carrying the image "with you" - the glasses project the image wherever you look, you only need the retroreflective surface so that you can see it (the microprojectors are really dim without it).

With CastAR you get an impression of a fully 3D object that you can walk around and explore all of its sides in a seamless manner, including animation. This Holus gizmo doesn't do that - you get  4 different images (each side one image), nothing more. This makes an enormous difference when it comes to creating the illusion that the object in front of you is real and not a "flat" projection.

Also Cast AR provides for interaction using the various props and wands. That is something that is really hard to do with these Pepper's Ghost displays, because the glass is always in the way of your hand or prop - the image appears  always "behind" the glass.

[miguelvp]

Microsoft's Hololens looks very promising with no retro reflective material needed.

Also Nvidia was playing with lenticular lenses for Near eye light field displays:
https://research.nvidia.com/publication/near-eye-light-field-displays

Kind of what the light field cameras do, there are also light field microscopes that allow you to change your point of view a little and refocus the image at any distance after you take the picture.

Those micro lenticular lenses are hard to find or they are very expensive.

cool gallery from those lytro cameras:

https://pictures.lytro.com/

[Dongulus]

janoc, I totally agree with your assessment. I don't want to give the impression that I believe that using the Holus and the CastAR will in any way feel similar. I do think that there is a comparison to be made about the sort of experiences that Technical Illusions and H+ wanted to craft and I want to clarify that.

When I look at all of the soon to be available products in the VR/AR space, I see a commonality: all of these technologies are built mainly for a solo experience. This is especially true for VR because it is by definition closed off from the real world and would require rendering digital avatars even if playing with others within the same room. The AR products don't have a problem seeing others within the surrounding area, but I haven't seen any product with the build-in ability to sync up virtual images between multiple devices.

This is where I see a difference with the CastAR. The CastAR doesn't just facilitate a 'shared' AR experience, but the technology is built with that as a core goal. The mat functions as focal point for all users from any angle, and the marker offers a simple way to sync virtual images between multiple devices. Because of this, the CastAR will allow people to play games face-to-face and see the same virtual objects while sitting around a table. The Holus, though to a much weaker degree, has accomplished a similar sort of unique virtual table-top gaming experience which is why I thought to compare them.

...
Sorry to veer off subject a bit, but I am really excited for the CastAR. I honestly don't have much interest in all of the VR products that I have been seeing because I don't think I could get comfortable detaching from my surroundings. The VR/AR realm is soon to be totally oversaturated with no clear winner as of yet. I believe the CastAR will succeed after all of the fervor dies down for a couple of reasons:
1. As I mentioned above, I don't think anyone else is really offering what CastAR does. Gaming has become such a prominent social activity that I believe that the desire to play games with friends face-to-face will be a strong drive for sales.
2. Though the CastAR experience is limited by the mat and the tracker, this setup is an advantage for the hardware design. The LED tracker and camera system is a simple and elegant way to do positional tracking. This means that very little processing power is needed which will cut down on size/price/power.

[tszaboo]

Marketing and 3d renderers hard at work. Physics is not a problem. Everything for the customer's money!

Actually you don't need 3D CGI fakery or breaking laws of physics for this device to work, the technique is over a century old (classic Pepper's ghost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost ) and works well. There are even products using it, as mentioned before.

That doesn't excuse the dishonest marketing and rip-off price, though. But if someone buys this, I guess it is their problem ... 

Second link:

In a Pepper’s Ghost display, the part of the image in the green triangle could not be seen from this angle.

As I said, the entire thing is 3D rendering they dont have a prototype or they change the image. Which is worse?

[janoc]

Microsoft's Hololens looks very promising with no retro reflective material needed.

Also Nvidia was playing with lenticular lenses for Near eye light field displays:
https://research.nvidia.com/publication/near-eye-light-field-displays

Kind of what the light field cameras do, there are also light field microscopes that allow you to change your point of view a little and refocus the image at any distance after you take the picture.

Those micro lenticular lenses are hard to find or they are very expensive.

cool gallery from those lytro cameras:

https://pictures.lytro.com/

I fail to see the relevance of these to the topic? 

Especially the Hololens which is mostly hype and hot air than an actually working product.

[janoc]

In a Pepper’s Ghost display, the part of the image in the green triangle could not be seen from this angle.

As I said, the entire thing is 3D rendering they dont have a prototype or they change the image. Which is worse?
[/quote]

Which image are you referring to?

My point was that you don't need CGI fakery to make a display like this work, not that all their imagery is genuine. I have seen displays like this first hand - see the image in another post of mine. It is hardly a new idea.

I didn't check the Holus images in detail, on a quick look they looked mostly sensible, with the obvious marketing fakery here and there.

[miguelvp]

I fail to see the relevance of these to the topic? 

Especially the Hololens which is mostly hype and hot air than an actually working product.

You brought up the CastAR, don't blame me

As for the Hololens, they demonstrated it on the last E3 and offered hands on tours, pretty cool ones BTW. So it IS a working product. But not in production just yet. (well it's in production but by the hundreds for now, still it feels imminent for a consumer release).




Edit: updated the 2nd video for the full Microsoft Build 2015 Hololens presentation that goes beyond Windows 10 Holographic and includes iOT integration with the Hololens

The Light Field takes it a bit further allowing you to focus anywhere within the stereoscopic images, making it true holo effect, for that we need higher res displays, but it will come, the tech is done.

Edit again: I forgot to mention, that the Hololens is a self contained unit, totally untethered  and battery powered. No idea on battery life yet.

[janoc]

I fail to see the relevance of these to the topic? 

Especially the Hololens which is mostly hype and hot air than an actually working product.

You brought up the CastAR, don't blame me

Wasn't me, that was Dongulus. 

As for the Hololens, they demonstrated it on the last E3 and offered hands on tours, pretty cool ones BTW. So it IS a working product. But not in production just yet. (well it's in production but by the hundreds for now, still it feels imminent for a consumer release).

I think nobody said that it isn't working product, but from the reviews that I have seen, the device suffers from a very poor field of view (~30 degrees) and really poor contrast due to the way it works - basically a projection on a semi-transparent surface acting as a combiner. I.e. good luck trying to use it in a normally lit room. There is a reason why all their demos were done in carefully controlled conditions and darkened rooms. It is nothing at all like the bombastic PR they were trying to present it with.

The Light Field takes it a bit further allowing you to focus anywhere within the stereoscopic images, making it true holo effect, for that we need higher res displays, but it will come, the tech is done.

Those are nowhere near anything usable - lightfield rendering is an enormous bandwidth and processing hog. That's also why true holography (not the Holywood Star Wars/Pepper's ghost or Microsoft's "holography") cannot be done in real time so far - same problem (hologram is a recording of the entire lightfield).

Zebra Imaging has made some very major advances there - they have holographic printers and they claimed to have a true real time holographic display as well:
http://www.zebraimaging.com/
http://www.zebraimaging.com/products/3D-Holographic-Prints

This is the supposed holographic display:
http://www.zebraimaging.com/products/motion-displays

The research paper showing how the device actually works is linked on the site too, I think. Some really hardcore physics in there.

Edit again: I forgot to mention, that the Hololens is a self contained unit, totally untethered  and battery powered. No idea on battery life yet.

As are many others, e.g. all those "strap a smarphone to your face" HMDs. On the other hand, that feature comes with an enormous price, because having the computer embedded in the device will seriously hamper the amount of graphical and tracking work you can do if you use a low spec, battery sipping CPU or the battery will be flat in no time if you go with a high perf. CPU. My suspicion is very much the later - they most likely used the same or very similar hw as they are using in the Surface tablets, i.e. an X86 CPU and those are not known for long battery life. Also streaming content over wireless is pretty much a no go because of the bandwidth and low latency required to feed the high resolution displays used in these devices.

BTW, the classic way of creating a volumetric (that is the correct term for the "floating" 3D imagery, not "hologram") projection is using a rotating screen. E.g. this device:

Explanation is here: http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=88&lang=2

Probably the first one of this type was the Cathode Ray Sphere by B.G. Blundell:




That's 1994, folks. No fancy data projectors there, good old vacuum tube CRT technology! I have actually met Dr. Blundell at that time, he presented his design of this gizmo at a conference I attended as a student. It was really fascinating device.

[miguelvp]

30 degrees? nah, more like 60 degrees horizontal, but the reporters that have been testing it don't know what the human eye's FOV is. Some reporter mentioned it covered 80% of your total field of view, I think that's an exaggeration as well.

Maybe you mean 30 degrees vertical, that might be on par.

I know they did put a special lens on the camera to make it look more immersive but even if it doesn't cover your peripheral vision it covers your macular and near peripheral on its entirety.

That would make it like having a 27" 1080p monitor at 24"(2 feet) away from you (around 61 cm for the metric), covering everything where you can see detail (well as long as you don't move your eyes )

Also I know how much bandwidth a light field requires, that's why Nvidia used a GPU accelerated stereoscopic light field renderer. Disney Research is working hard on Light Fields too, but more to get 3D reconstruction. Nvidia is doing the oposite, it generates Light Fields on the fly from 3D computer models.

HoloLens with Oculus optics and Nvidias Light Field rendering models captured with Disney's 3D reconstruction from Light Fields. I don't see that as too far from now.

Link to Disney Research:
http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/lightfields/

[edy]

Just watched CNET's show Tomorrow Daily and episode 200 talks about Holus. June 29, 2015 air date. http://www.cnet.com/tomorrow-daily/

This should be a direct link: http://www.cnet.com/videos/visit-henson-creature-shop-talk-james-patterson-cbs-zoo-tomorrow-daily-200/

They as usual just recite the press kit at face value and show the rendered videos. No mention at all of any issues... They say it is a hologram. Basically same problem all media has today, which is a puppet for industry.

[janoc]

30 degrees? nah, more like 60 degrees horizontal, but the reporters that have been testing it don't know what the human eye's FOV is. Some reporter mentioned it covered 80% of your total field of view, I think that's an exaggeration as well.

Maybe you mean 30 degrees vertical, that might be on par.

Nope. The number is from this review:
http://doc-ok.org/?p=1223

Oliver Kreylos is a well known researcher in the field and he has quite a bit of experience with similar devices, so I have no reason do doubt his judgement. Moreover, his assessment meshes well with the comments from others too - the second HoloLens prototype that was demonstrated (the one with the built-in computer, the first one was powered from a laptop) has a much narrower field of view.

I am pretty sure that if I get to see a 30deg FOV I would be able to estimate it myself too. I have seen plenty of HMDs in my life already and 30deg is comparable to the old Vuzix glasses or many of the crappy video glasses you will find on AliExpress - basically you have a small "window" in the middle of your field of view where the image is projected.

HoloLens with Oculus optics and Nvidias Light Field rendering models captured with Disney's 3D reconstruction from Light Fields. I don't see that as too far from now.

That's unlikely to happen. Oculus "optics" is a single cheap magnifying glass (don't remember whether it is aspheric or not). They then do an enormous amount of work in software to correct for the lens distortion and chromatic aberration. Lightfield rendering needs a completely different setup - you can't just bolt a lens in front of a lightfield to "stretch it" to a wider FOV. 

Also the display element is very different - Oculus uses a smartphone display (the DK2 display is literally from Samsung Galaxy Note 4, I think, they even kept the touch screen intact).

There is also the "detail" that the lightfield rendering by Nvidia used a powerful GPU for all the calculations. However, a real application will need that GPU to actually generate the content to display, e.g. from a game or whatever other application. Needing a separate GPU just to accelerate the calculation for the HMD is not likely going to be a very appealing constraint.

[Orpheus]

Part of the problem is that Holus changed their video early in the campaign (remember, they met their target in the first 19 minutes). The original video was faked with photo realistic CGI and had the usual physical impossibilities of a fake, such as "reflected" areas that were darker than the background and images in impossible areas of the viewing field. [example]

They also put a phony "Kickstarter Staff Pick" badge on their campaign -- which Kickstarter (strangely) decided wasn't a problem. I'd expect this kind of nonsense from IndieGoGo etc, not KS.

Some people had been diligently fighting to get this campaign stopped since Day 1. Joanie LeMercier had a nice detailed writeup

[janoc]

Part of the problem is that Holus changed their video early in the campaign (remember, they met their target in the first 19 minutes). The original video was faked with photo realistic CGI and had the usual physical impossibilities of a fake, such as "reflected" areas that were darker than the background and images in impossible areas of the viewing field. [example]

They also put a phony "Kickstarter Staff Pick" badge on their campaign -- which Kickstarter (strangely) decided wasn't a problem. I'd expect this kind of nonsense from IndieGoGo etc, not KS.

Some people had been diligently fighting to get this campaign stopped since Day 1. Joanie LeMercier had a nice detailed writeup

Ah, interesting. I didn't know that. I guess I have missed the first faked video when I saw what the project was about.

KS really should do better job with reviewing projects and not allow BS faked marketing videos instead of something showing proper prototypes.

[janoc]

On the other hand, calling this a scam is a bit over the top. It will be a scam if they don't actually deliver anything.

In fact, they don't have to develop anything, they can simply ship these straight from China:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-cost-Holo-box-3D-display-Hologram-3D-display-Hologram-display-box-for-advertising-trade/408115_540442357.html

[Orpheus]

I might not call it a scam -- but then again, I might.

It all depends on how generic/inaccurate a use of terms like "hologram" and "holographic" you are willing to forgive. They absolutely DO NOT mean "an image that appears to float in space".

I don't care that it isn't a "Hologram" = "a hardcopy that generates a holographic image"; or that it doesn't use lasers, as required by the best described/developed current use of the term [I could forgive a holographic image by some new non-laser technology]. It isn't "holographic" in the sense that obstructing half the data creates a view of the whole image at a reduced resolution. It isn't even a "3-D image": it's a flat projection of a common 2-D screen, showing merely the same distorted 2-D image as any TV/computer monitor as you move your head around the display.

Bluntly: if this is holographic, then so is my computer monitor, because this is just a partial reflection of a monitor -- with necessarily less brightness/clarity/contrast. If it's not holographic, then it is utterly misleading, because it merely projects an inferior 2-D image that appears to float in space (when correctly viewed).

At what point does one say "this product cannot live up to the words used in the campaign, and the campaigners should at least know what the words they choose for their own claims mean?" How much leeway does one give to ignorance -- "gee, I thought my device was over-unity" or "well, *I* felt these kilobuck cables produced more <undefined adjective> sound from a digital CD"

At what point does one say "well, they delivered SOMETHING" vs. delivering what they promised?

[janoc]

I might not call it a scam -- but then again, I might.
..
At what point does one say "well, they delivered SOMETHING" vs. delivering what they promised?

Scam has a quite clear definition - it needs to be a fraud. If they run away with the money and don't ship anything, or ship something widely different from what was advertised (e.g. a brick in the box), yes, that will be a scam. But we don't know that yet.

I am afraid that they have so many weasel words in there that it will be really hard to sue them if they actually send out something. That it is not a true holography, that it looks different, etc. will likely not be enough to convince a court. If everyone else claims this is "holographic" (just see Microsoft's recent "redefinition" of what "holo" means), good luck with that argument. I feel your pain, but that has little chance.  At best they could get some sort of fine for false advertising - if you are really really lucky.

That's why I don't call it a scam. Dishonest, ripoff, false advertising, perhaps even bait and switch, yeah, by all means. Scam? Probably not, unless one of the things above happens. It is pretty much in the same category as the overpriced "magic XYZ"/"as seen on TV" crap advertised in teleshopping right now.