from Hacker News

This is what Doom looks like on a holographic display

by ttflee on 4/19/21, 8:54 AM with 63 comments

  • by hesdeadjim on 4/19/21, 2:52 PM

    I've built a non-trivial prototype application for the Looking Glass, and once you are past the initial 'cool' moment the downsides start to rear their head:

    - Split a 4k signal into 45 view planes means the effective resolution sucks, bad.

    - Likewise, if your content is complicated at all you need a monster GPU because you are rendering your scenes 45 times per frame, meaning 45 times the draw calls.

    - Field of view is very limited

    - The amount of z-depth you can put content in without major blurring is much lower than even this video would indicate.

    - You need to design your scene so important content never reaches the edges or things look yuck.

    - Some patterns lead to artifacts like moire, and it can be hard to predict. Your content needs to work around this.

    - They are (understandably) very expensive.

    All that said, these things are cool and would be a perfect fit for some use-cases. After the prototype I built was green lit for full production, the decision was made to ditch these displays for all the reasons above.

  • by boboche on 4/19/21, 12:12 PM

    This is autostereoscopic, not holographic. It is however really nice, 10 yrs ago we were playing Quake on a WowVx display from Phillips when not working on autostereoscopic digital signage content. Phillips stopped with as3d and spun off Dimenco which are also selling As3d products, newsight, tridelity, and a few others are around... but all of this is NOT holography. Its high res display with a lenticular sheet splitting viewpoints.

  • by monsieurbanana on 4/19/21, 10:09 AM

    This is... way cheaper than I thought it would be at $250(pre-order price?).

    But I don't understand how it works. Seems like... head/hand tracking? But then why the weird-looking screen?

    A bit disappointed, at first I thought it was something similar to those cards we had when we were kids, that change image depending on which angle you look at them (forgot the name).

    Edit: seems like it's a bit of both: https://docs.lookingglassfactory.com/KeyConcepts/how-it-work...

    Edit2: Okay so it does work like the cards we had when we were kids. The screen shows 45 different views of the scene at once. I'm back at being non-disappointed.

  • by teekert on 4/19/21, 9:36 AM

    Cool, but, it looks exactly like watching a display with a Wii remote on your head [0, 2007]. What’s so special? Is it actually 3D this time?

    [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

  • by tito on 4/19/21, 3:00 PM

    Incredible stuff! I first saw Looking Glass Factory [0] at Maker Faire in San Mateo around 2016. It was simple back then, probably 64 x 64 pixels "display". Imagine a bamboo garden made of 64 LED strips standing up, about 3'x3'x3' cube. Playing screensaver type light displays, entertaining at low res.

    Then I saw a more recent version at a coffee shop in Providence. They're up to legit resolution now, and as a poster said, the light is split so all you're doing is moving your head. No head tracking/whatever.

    It's one of those things that's tough to "get" without seeing yourself. Feels like a definitive piece of the future. I joined their Kickstarter awhile back as well.

    Go Looking Glass crew!

    [0] https://lookingglassfactory.com/

  • by 0-_-0 on 4/19/21, 9:37 AM

    Cool, but it's not using the correct FOV to make sure the viewer/eye is at the focal point. That would look way cooler, I've seen a demo like that before. You get the impression you're looking through a window to another world.

    Edit: the video linked here by teekert does it correctly

  • by alvarlagerlof on 4/19/21, 10:07 AM

    I wish people would stop calling these holographic

  • by icegreentea2 on 4/19/21, 11:12 AM

    Like other people have said, this looks like a Looking Glass dev unit or something.

    And here's a Linus Tech Tips video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EA2FQXs4dw

    They have some good footage (though obviously it's setup as a hype reel too).

    Edit: Skip to follow for "beauty shots": 4:45 and 8:50. 6:12 for funky shot of the 'flattened' image to give you a sense of what 'trick' they're playing

  • by ekianjo on 4/19/21, 1:18 PM

    Cool but technically looking glass is not an holographic display.

  • by elyobo on 4/19/21, 10:03 AM

    > This is not available to you

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • by supermatt on 4/19/21, 1:59 PM

    i love these displays, but the smaller one feels too small for anything other than a photo-frame, and the large(r) one is CRAZY expensive (and still too small...)

  • by Black101 on 4/19/21, 2:27 PM

    The next wall hackers