Similar to when R2-D2 beamed a 3D image of Princess Leia into thin air in "Star Wars," the technology is capable of "producing images in ‘thin air’ that are visible from almost any direction and are not subject to clipping."
Though holograms have been around for a while, this new technique is the closest to replicating the famous "Star Wars" scene with Fisher's Leia asking for help from Obi-Wan, played by the late Sir Alec Guinness.
"The way they do it is really cool," Curtis Broadbent, of the University of Rochester told the Associated Press. "You can have a circle of people stand around it and each person would be able to see it from their own perspective. And that's not possible with a hologram." Broadbent did not work on the study with Smalley but is working on a competing technology.
Smalley, an electrical engineering professor at Brigham Young University, said the tiny specs of light are controlled with laser lights, similar to the fictional tractor beam in "Star Trek." However, it was the 2008 movie "Iron Man," when Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) wears a holographic glove, that gave him the inspiration.
Going from holograms to this type of technology — technically called volumetric display — is like shifting from a two-dimensional printer to a three-dimensional printer, Smalley said. Holograms appear to the eye to be three-dimensional, but "all of the magic is happening on a 2-D surface," he explained.
The key is trapping and moving the particles around potential disruptions — like Tony Stark's arm — so the "arm is no longer in the way," Smalley told the AP.
Other versions of volumetric display use larger "screens" and "you can't poke your finger into it because your fingers would get chopped off," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor V. Michael Bove, who wasn't part of the study team but was Smalley's mentor.
The device Smalley uses is about one-and-a-half times the size of a children's lunchbox, he said.
So far the projections have been tiny, but with more work and multiple beams, Smalley hopes to have bigger projections.
This method could one day be used to help guide medical procedures — as well as for entertainment, Smalley said.
More at: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/01/...-thin-air.html
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