YouTube – Cheoptics360 show Holographic Ads

I think we may need a new word, because “holographic” has been co-opted to mean “floating in air” as opposed to a true 3D reconstruction of an object’s light.

The way this deceive (oops, typo: device) seems to work is that four standard projectors on the big truss arms aim into the “empty” space and hit an invisible screen, probably some sort of thin wire mesh of a clever shape to allow one to walk around and not see it. So the major achievement is that you can watch 2D video from any angle on a fairly invisible screen (seemingly in mid air), albeit inside a fairly bulky truss.

As to the claims of this being volumetric or 3D, I don’t see any evidence of it. To be 3D, it needs to deliver a different image to each eye. And to be truly 3D, those images would need to vary depending on where you stood. So if you walk around a 3D car, you’re not always looking at the same angle, whether it’s stereoscopic or not. That’s hard to tell in a gootube video. But as the camera moved around, I noticed the objects (though generally moving, spinning, etc..) followed us as if our perspective didn’t matter. You can see it if you look carefully.

There are systems on the market that can do true 3D (though still not true holography) using rapidly spinning mirrors, very fast projectors and a big-ass computer to pump all that imagery through. But the speed we’re talking about is something like 10,000 RPM and the four projectors would need to update at at least 1/4th of that rate. There’s a reason those systems are small and are contained inside a protective glass hemisphere, probably with a vacuum pulled to reduce turbulence. Something this big would create a mini tornado if it spun at anything close to that speed.

This system seems like it would be nice in the middle of a convention center or big retail store to attract attention, but not much more.