HoloVect - first credible volumetric display?

[marcan]

So this is making the rounds:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2029950924/holovect-holographic-vector-display



Unlike the previous scams about volumetric/holographic projection, this actually looks plausible from a physical standpoint. It seems it is simply a standard laser projector/scanner, plus some kind of device that (their words) "modifies" the air (it has a grill) placed under the projection volume, to provide the Z axis by making the air refract/scatter the laser light. The big question is what does "modify" mean, exactly. Good old smoke/particulates, aimed across a moving slice of air? Something to do with heat? The grill seems to have thin slice apertures in it, suggesting maybe they're alternating between them to provide "curtains" of air at various Z depths:



At one point in the video, a hand is shown interacting with the display, and when it moves to disturb the airflow the projection is disturbed, which is what you'd expect:



Of course, this kind of tech is going to have a lot of limitations. The framerate is low, lower even than for standard laser projectors (and some of the shots in the video were apparently sped up); you won't be projecting any complex objects any time soon, as framerate depends on vector complexity. The shots in the video are careful to never show the surface directly in front of the laser beams - of course, in reality, your wall will be showing a very bright 2D projection of the object. And there is no mention of eye safety; lasers are not something you want casual users interacting with, and the laser will have to be pretty powerful since whatever process they're using for refraction will necessarily be quite inefficient.

[ferrix]

We have finally reached Star Wars Ep. IV tech

[timb]

One step closer to the Holodeck. One step closer to Minuet (or Moriarty if that's your pleasure).