Road to the Holodeck: Lightfields and Volumetric VR

It's come and gone, but it looked to be very interesting.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/road-to-the-holodeck-lightfields-and-volumetric-vr-tickets-34087827610#

What's a lightfield, you ask?

Several technologies are required for VR's holy grail: the fabled holodeck. We already have graphical VR experiences that let us move throughout volumentric spaces, such as video games. And we have photorealistic media that lets us look around a 360 plane from a fixed position (a.k.a. head tracking).

But what about the best of both worlds?

We're talking volumetric spaces in which you can move around, but are also photorealistic. In addition to things like positional tracking and lots of processing horsepower, the heart of this vision is lightfields. They define how photons hit our eyes and render what we see.

Because it's a challenge to capture photorealistic imagery from every possible angle in a given space -- as our eyes do in real reality -- the art of lightfields in VR involves extrapolating many vantage points, once a fixed point is captured. And that requires clever algorithms, processing, and whole lot of data.

Volume Slicing Display

This is fairly simple but hasn't been commercialized yet. AFAIK

It consists of 1 or 2 video cameras, a projector, a sheet of frosted glass or plastic and a PC with a decent 3D Graphics cards.

For software they use ARToolkit to track the position of the transparent hand held screen and use and Direct Draw, or OpenGL to render the image that's projected.

At this point any standard Android tablet or IPad just by itself should be able to do this.

Using the accelerometers and gyros alone is not enough. They need to be combined with additional data from the built in video camera to track the tablets movement relative to it's  environment.


If someone wishes to pick up this challenge let me know.  I ask that you credit this this post with the idea and link to it.   I am also available on a paid bases.

John L. Sokol




The Volume Slicing Display enables interactive exploration of volumetric data using a rigid, passive, untethered screen. The system tracks the screen (a piece of plexiglas or paper) using a custom monocular high-speed vision system (Vision Chip) or using ARToolkit markers; then one or more projectors on the room project the corresponding slice of a 3D virtual object on that surface in real time. This experimental interface will enable multiple users to feel as if 3D virtual objects co-exist in real space, as well as to explore them interactively using cheap passive projection surfaces (plexiglas or even paper). This project is related to the "Khronos Projector" and the "Deformable Workspace", but is more oriented towards medical imaging technologies.

http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/perception/VolumeSlicingDisplay/index-e.html

Sony RayModeler 360 Autusteroscopic Display Prototype

The RayModeler 3D display 

 LED light sources allow you to see an image from all angles, 360 degrees. Objects like faces and people appear realistic giving viewers a sense of depth because the left and right eyes are seeing different images. I saw a demo of the display recently at the Sony offices and looking at moving 3D holographic images was almost like looking into a crystal ball! You’ll notice in the video the images even react and move when prompted by the wave of a hand. Though the device can’t let you see into the future, it is the future of how we will display objects, game or even see advertisements or displays at stores.




http://blog.sony.com/sony-prototype-360%C2%B0-3d-display
http://blog.sony.com/raymodeler-3d-prototype-will-be-showcased-at-siggraph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BFKC-NKRFw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volumetric_display