Hololuminescent Display | Hacker News Reader

Hololuminescent Display

lookingglassfactory.com

53 pointsgeox29 comments

Good illusion. You’ll indeed notice the video itself stays totally 2D if you look at the chair legs while they are moving around the display. Probably works best if there are no static objects in video.

It’s not a simple illusion - I own one of their earlier devices (much bulkier) and the 3D effect really works in person.

This is tickling my memory of "why aren't there good consumer 3d cameras".

I have a Fuji finepix 3d camera that makes awesome 3d pictures and even has a fairly crappy but working 3d display. Awesome even if the resolution is not great given today's tech. I'd love to shoot a lot of 3d pictures today and have my grandkids look at them sometime in the future with their then awesome 3d display tech. It's such a missed opportunity.

Too bad the economics aren't working out :(

Yeah, hang on to your Fuji. I picked up two on eBay and treasure them.

I also have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-3D1 (eBay) that is similar. You should get one too.

Regardless, I currently print my good prints as "stereographs" and then use them in an old-fashioned stereo viewer. Kids enjoy that though.

Man, I wish there was a service that would do this. So tedious. Cutting the prints to the correct size, mounting on chipboard backing for stiffness, rounding the corners for aesthetics…

Claude and I created this tool for going from stereo-image to print-ready stereograph: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Stereographer

Maybe I should buy a few of those:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807100527325.html

The github looks fabulous. I have currently very complicated transition lenses which seem to make 3d perceptions harder. :(

AI 3D conversion has gotten good enough recently for that kind of thing, just layered translucency is the main thing that doesn't work well. Some minor edge artifacts mostly worked around with dilating the foreground or generative infill.

You can convert your whole desktop/browser/youtube etc in realtime at slightly lower quality than offline conversion with a 5090 GPU.

My lab is working actively in that area :)

We hope real 3d camera will be a reality in some years.

Good Sir, economics is never supposed to work out.

I was hoping this was a commercialization of desktop VR head tracking: https://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2007/12/head-tracking-... (2007)

That type of 3D is limited to one viewer, but is pretty cool.

On this very topic, this might be one of my most favorite videos ever single-handedly changing my understanding of holograms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmKQsSDlaa4

Ahh, would that the word "hologram" was still being used for the same physical concept (recreating an image from light interference). Oh well, I guess the public has decided hologram means 3D image.

(Kind of like to get into old-school holography — now that I can actually afford a laser.)

Physicists already started to use alternate meanings of the word with the “holographic universe” in the 1990s. The generalized meaning in physics then became, essentially, “something that looks 3D but is actually 2D.” Which is also how the public uses it.

One could quibble and claim that the nature of the 2D encoding in the case of the holographic universe is closer to that of the original concept, but it’s a weak defense at best. After all, the holographic universe isn’t even just about light, it proposes that matter and space itself is only apparently 3D.

Blame lawyers and holographic wills.

Can anyone link a Wikipedia article or briefly describe how does this work?

Digging through their web page, are one point they describe it as “multi-view parallax” which I’m interpreting as a parallax barrier based display, providing different views depending on view angle.

The background environment is static, and I think it might be a seperate optical layer (maybe even an actual hologram?)

"Multi-view parallax" sounds like lenticular (https://www.stereoscopy.com/faq/lenticular.html).

I'd assumed it was actually a parallax barrier, possibly with a lenticular sheet in front of it to help fill in the gaps, but yeah it could just be lenticular like those "3D" photos with the plastic lens sheet in front of them.

How good is the illusion? Will it look 3D or somewhat off?

Will it work at different distances?

Will it look 3D still if I am still and nothing is moving in view?

> How good is the illusion? Will it look 3D or somewhat off?

I've got the original 8" Looking Glass Portrait (from the Kickstarter) and it's not bad? Works well enough to get the sense of depth but wouldn't fool anyone for a second[1][2].

> Will it look 3D still if I am still and nothing is moving in view?

Yes (or at least mine does)

[1] May be just my workflow, mind; it's not like I'm spending a huge amount of time crafting content for it.

[2] And I'd assume they've refined the technology since then.

Thanks, I thought I remembered seeing these folks a while ago. From checking on Kickstarter it looks like they actually had three different ones so far.

Last Update 2020, 1,301, $844,621, Looking Glass: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lookingglass/the-lookin...

Last Update 2023, 8,051, $2,511,785, Looking Glass Portrait: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lookingglass/looking-gl...

Last Update 2025, 2,365, $680,940, Looking Glass Go: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lookingglass/looking-gl...

First Kickstarter had pretty positive, seems like there were a lot of delivery issues with the later Kickstarters. Still, done three of these so far with at least some percentage actually getting something eventually.

It's difficult to tell on Kickstarter sometimes, since there's a bunch that have horrible order fulfillment, and collapsed delivering almost nothing, or pulled snatch and grab rug pulls, yet there's also a lot of people who expect it's like clicking "ship" on Amazon.

The Kickstarters actually have a lot of answers to the tech questions about turning flat photos into 3D images and taking 3D pictures, and the basic tech ideas being used.

Hard to tell but from the videos and the described toolchain it sounds like the video is actually completely 2D and they're just presenting it inside a 'holographic' environment. Think of it like a model theatre with a Pepper's Ghost illusion in the middle, except with some fancypants optics to make the display actually be much thinner than the 'theatre' insde.

It seems a bit disingenuous to call it holographic doesn't it? I believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_imaging is the technology. It has similarities with lenticular prints.

I found this print that uses 'Integral imaging' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0MP6mW7BW0

https://opg.optica.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-49-8-1876 appears to be a real holographic display.

Pre-print: https://preprints.opticaopen.org/articles/preprint/Computer-...

Could this technology be modified to 1 to 1 video calls?

The "People" section implies yes. Just need that in 2 directions and sound I presume.

I think it's actually just an optical illusion. Their FAQ mentions giving you a video editor template for adding lighting and shadows.

The "No bulky boxes. Just 3D presence." tagline must come from an LLM, right? Crazy they chose to go with such cheap copy for a 10kUSD-range product. I am not saying you must call in Don Draper for every single landing page or hero call, but come on.

Their previous generation displays were “bulky boxes” around 13cm deep, that’s what it is being compared to.

Okay but that is still not good copy. You always say your _new_ product is the best one yet (see Apple), you don't badmouth your old ones.

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