Multivox: Volumetric Display

Posted by jk_tech 5 days ago

Counter327Comment45OpenOriginal

Comments

Comment by JKCalhoun 5 days ago

In case you miss it, a video of the thing in operation is linked: https://youtu.be/pcAEqbYwixU

Reminds me that there are limitations to volumetric displays—namely that, since you have no idea where the viewer is located, there is no backface culling you can perform. So it seems to work best for "cutaway" views.

I'd like to see one in person. Might be "magical" — the video only kind of hints at this.

Comment by two_handfuls 5 days ago

I think this limitation could be overcome with the right hardware.

For example imagine a spinning display like those of the article but somehow tuned so that they are only visible when exactly head on. In that case, you know where the observer is: right in line with the screen. So you can have backface culling; as the display spins you render all 360 (or however many) viewpoints.

Now granted, this doesn't deal with how high or low the observer is. We'd need to find another solution for that.

Comment by PetitPrince 5 days ago

> imagine a spinning display like those of the article but somehow tuned so that they are only visible when exactly head on

I don't understand: doesn't defeat the purpose of a volumetric display (seeing what is displayed from multiple point of view) ?

Comment by two_handfuls 4 days ago

This would be a poor man's "lightfield" display: as you move left or right you see a different perspEctive, just like you would if it were a physical object on the table instead of the spinning screen contraption.

So you would indeed see different points of view.

Comment by ruined 4 days ago

that's just a flat display with extra steps

Comment by two_handfuls 4 days ago

It’s different from a flat display in that if you walk around it, you see a different perspective. And it works with any number of viewers.

Comment by lawlessone 5 days ago

I can see it making a great "radar" peripheral for 3d space games, think Elite Dangerous or No Mans Sky that both have one in their cockpits.

Comment by unwind 5 days ago

I think it's worth pointing out that "in operation" here means it's running Doom. Which I was not expected, and somewhat blown away (heh) by. Very very cool.

Comment by seanmcdirmid 5 days ago

If only Halolens took off. Now we have to make do with Chinese drone performances at night.

Comment by thesz 5 days ago

These displays use rotating mechanisms.

This ones does not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrfBjRp61iY

Volumetric display in the video above uses static projector whose pixels light up etchings inside solid glass.

Comment by yboris 5 days ago

Thank you for sharing - it's a brilliant piece of tech. I posted this earlier but it didn't catch on with upvoting

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137203

Comment by probablycorey 5 days ago

The same person built both of these.

Comment by ge96 5 days ago

feel like I saw this in a hackaday, at least remember hearing the podcast about projecting all the rays at all intersections, it was green though maybe I'm thinking of something else

oh wow yeah I've seen a lot of this channel's work before the lego display, the CV fiber optic bundle display

Comment by wowczarek 5 days ago

Whatever the outcome, when someone sets up an optical table, I'm sold.

Comment by two_handfuls 4 days ago

Speaking of tables, you probably already know about Tilt-Five? If not, they made a very neat social AR system focused on tabletop gaming.

https://www.tiltfive.com/

Comment by bananananna3654 5 days ago

This one uses a projector on oscillating rubber bands so that you can reach in and touch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwKOXxX9Ck

Comment by mjorgers 4 days ago

That’s actually really neat. It’ll be interesting to see how durable these kinds of displays end up being. Rubber bands tend to loosen up with use, or when exposed to uv rays.

Comment by Terr_ 5 days ago

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought "why not vacuum", so I went and found the creator's reasoning [0] for why it's not a priority:

> [I]nside the dome the air quickly ends up rotating at the same rate as the rest of the mechanism. It's reaching its design speed with the motor at less than half duty cycle. Even if it were practical to make the whole thing airtight, it doesn't solve a problem that I currently have. The sound it makes doesn't come from inside the dome but from the motor in the base.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcAEqbYwixU&lc=UgygtRUb6XZyu...

Comment by Terr_ 5 days ago

[Self-reply with side-topic] Assuming a rectangular display rotating in standard air... what glass enclosure would be best?

My intuition says "change the sphere to a cylinder", because then we can minimize how much air could be passing around the sides and top of the display-rectangle, potentially curling around and causing turbulence and noise.

However, that introduces a new issue of visibility: Big flat surfaces have different glare/reflection problems than a spheroid does. It may become harder for the user to see clearly, whether from external glare or from internal reflections in a dark room. What if the top face of the glass cylinder was very slightly curved outwards, to avoid the worst-case scenario where you just can't look down into the device from certain angles? Depending on the refractive index of the glass, it could just be a thicker top, so that it doesn't create dead-space on the inside.

Comment by tra3 5 days ago

Whoa, the intersection of different skills necessary is incredible.

- software

- math

- 3d printing

- electronics

Very impressive.

Comment by polishdude20 5 days ago

This looks crazy good! I love how you made it easy to see how balanced it is.

Shameless plug, I made a similar thing but for bike wheels!

https://youtu.be/o8n-bu2kKnc?si=BPn8tRbFTiQROJg1

Comment by paxcoder 4 days ago

[dead]

Comment by limbicsystem 5 days ago

This guy's entire output is incredible (from alien tellitubbies onwards). Go moose! https://mastodon.social/@ancientjames

Comment by ceejayoz 5 days ago

My fav: a two-by-two LEGO block that can run and show Doom. https://www.hackster.io/news/james-brown-s-tiny-lego-brick-c...

Comment by eps 5 days ago

An earlier iteration of the same block is imo more impressive in its creativity - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBrOV2FJM8&t=720 - such an unexpected and yet completely natural extension of the brick set.

Comment by 5 days ago

Comment by msuniverse2026 5 days ago

I wonder if you could have a vibrating chladni plate with sand on it and you match when the sand should jump with the light that's meant to be at that spot. You get the interruption of light looking like a mid-air pixel and then when it isn't needed it drops back down allowing light to pass through. Kind of like one of those mist-screens except there isn't mist where you don't need it.

Comment by dllu 5 days ago

I once considered making a spinning persistence of vision similar to this one specifically for visualizing lidar data from a spinning automotive lidar. The lidar has 128 beams and you could make a spinning array of 128 1D LED displays at exactly the same beam angles to recreate the point cloud from the lidar.

Anyway, I was too lazy to make it, but it's super neat to see that someone actually made something similar.

Comment by btbuildem 5 days ago

Before I watched the video, my brain ran ahead and I imagined it would be one of those led "fans", except also rotating around it's base. It might be harder to sync the two rotations, but you'd have much less mass in motion that way.

The solid state ones are cool! The real mystery there is how the pixel volume was manufactured -- it doesn't seem like something easily DIY'd

Comment by raphman 5 days ago

There are companies that laser-'etch' 3D images into glass. I guess it's not that hard to find one that accepts a list of xyz coordinates.

Comment by qoez 5 days ago

Never knew this was possible. I hope some huge company with lots of resources jumps on this and drives up the resolution and price.

Comment by andblac 5 days ago

Check out Voxon [1]. From the specs and youtube videos it seems like it's working on the same principle (rotating LED screen). Fun fact, it was co-founded by none other than Ken Silverman (the creator of Build engine) [2]. They've been pushing commercialization of this technology for years now.

[1] https://www.voxon.co/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Silverman

Comment by nl 5 days ago

My son works on this. It's pretty cool tech.

Comment by two_handfuls 5 days ago

Also check out the company named "Light Field Displays" for stunning displays. Not exactly the same as volumetric. Arguably better in some ways. Definitely more expensive though.

https://www.holoxica.com/light-field-displays

Comment by tclancy 5 days ago

>drives up the resolution and price.

Uh, I get the former but why the latter?

Comment by qoez 4 days ago

meant down :p

Comment by Night_Thastus 5 days ago

Why would they?

I mean, I think it's SUPER cool and would not mind one sitting on my desk.

But from a product standpoint...? It doesn't scale well in size, resolution or refresh rate.

VR is pretty much better if you want a the kind of immersion I think you'd be looking for, and even selling that is hard.

Comment by _flux 5 days ago

Looking Glass displays (not the "hololuminescent" ones) solve many of the same things (multiple viewers, no glasses) while looking good, and in principle you could build a cube out of them, although the display can't be seen from the full 180 degrees.

Comment by ge96 5 days ago

interesting it is different than these kinds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM7wsXcYQFM

which I guess is the "volume" part

Comment by simultsop 5 days ago

Amazing, finally a refreshing, motivation source!

Comment by lifty 5 days ago

Would be great having one of these hooked up to an LLM agent so it can be somehow “embodied”. Like a Siri + volumetric display + speaker. Waiting for a company to build this.

Comment by kridsdale3 5 days ago

Like the Morpheus character near the end of Deus Ex.

Comment by lifty 5 days ago

Exactly, but more friendly

Comment by iberator 5 days ago

DOES IT RUN DOOM?! seriously

Comment by genpfault 5 days ago

It was right there[1] in the assembly video.

[1]: https://youtu.be/pcAEqbYwixU?t=1038

Comment by ZeWaka 5 days ago

yes.

Comment by wowczarek 5 days ago

Doom or Quake renderer coming when?