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Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

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Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#31

Post by digikata »

pasta wrote: post #11
hateful wrote: post #6

"The Looking Glass generates 45 distinct views of a three-dimensional scene" Now that GPUs can reliably generate 60 FPS, this is the next step to push that technology. Because you'll need 45x60FPS for the same quality. And then you'll push the 45 number higher. (yes, I know the 60 isn't visible and has to do with control input).

I'm not sure I get your comment. In my mind you can render $x pixels at 60fps. So the number of pixels for each distinct view is: $x / 45.

For one, prerendered 3D video could go as detailed as the transfer pipe & display would allow.

For another, the worst case cost is $x/45, but I would think that might improve as 3D programmers figure out optimizations in terms of multi angle view rendering.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#33

Post by westoncb »

pasta wrote: post #11
hateful wrote: post #6

"The Looking Glass generates 45 distinct views of a three-dimensional scene" Now that GPUs can reliably generate 60 FPS, this is the next step to push that technology. Because you'll need 45x60FPS for the same quality. And then you'll push the 45 number higher. (yes, I know the 60 isn't visible and has to do with control input).

I'm not sure I get your comment. In my mind you can render $x pixels at 60fps. So the number of pixels for each distinct view is: $x / 45.

You're right. This is essentially meaningless: "Now that GPUs can reliably generate 60 FPS ...."

That depends entirely on what you're rendering. You could reliably hit over 60 FPS for decades—for some content. And now you can still render at .000000001 FPS for other content.

Saying "GPUs can generate 60 FPS" is presenting the situation as if framerate were a function of hardware only, whereas the reality of the situation is that it depends at least as much on the software.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#34

Post by ryandamm »

mozumder wrote: post #27
janoc wrote: post #19

These lenticular autostereoscopic displays have been around for a long time and never quite took off. There have been even 3D TVs (Philips) using this idea. I am not quite sure what is "new" apart of yet again abusing the "holographic" term (hint, it has zero to do with holograms or holography). The major issues with these are the limited viewing angles and the enormous bandwidth needed to both render the individual…

Yes the problem with light-field displays (and cameras) is that they do need massive bandwidths. But there are ways to mitigate it somewhat. It's possible to have a gaussian or random distribution of light rays so that you end up with only average about 10 or so rays per pixel, instead of the 45 here. But yes, expect to need a massive increase in bandwidth for light-field holographic displays. This includes headset V…

If you don't display the full raster, you're aliasing the signal and will see a lot of view-dependent artifacts (twinkling).

Source: I work in light fields.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#36

Post by opticalflow »

hughes wrote: post #12
xori wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were smart you could encode multiple views into a single pixel to get a higher resolution, but then I figure that would limit your colour depth availability.

How would encoding multiple view into a single pixel work with a lenticular display? There needs to be a physical distance between each of the views.

This is not a lenticular display. It's a stack of 45 independent transparent TFTs.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#37

Post by mozumder »

ryandamm wrote: post #34
mozumder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the problem with light-field displays (and cameras) is that they do need massive bandwidths. But there are ways to mitigate it somewhat. It's possible to have a gaussian or random distribution of light rays so that you end up with only average about 10 or so rays per pixel, instead of the 45 here. But yes, expect to need a massive increase in bandwidth for light-field holographic displays. This includes headset V…

If you don't display the full raster, you're aliasing the signal and will see a lot of view-dependent artifacts (twinkling). Source: I work in light fields.

Which is why I said you need to distribute the rays around randomly in a gaussian distribution. Don't just arrange them in perfect rows and columns - that's the worst array option that guarantees aliasing. You can shift each pixel (or subpixel) lens around slightly in a permanent pattern.

Anti-aliasing techniques are common elsewhere in 3-D graphics, and can be used just as well in light-fields.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#38

Post by lbm »

fhood wrote: post #3

My first inclination was to dismiss it as a gimmick, and really it is a gimmick, but it is so damn cool that I want one, especially if the Api's are relatively good.

Even if it's a bit of a gimmick in its current state, it's a great step towards something truly useful. Technology like this could be amazing in fields like medicine and education.

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#39

Post by itronitron »

this is similar to what I imagined when I first read the initial press release for Magic Leap (years ago now) albeit on a smaller scale. This looks far more promising for the entertainment industry than vr/ar goggles. My only nit is that they didn't use the dancing baby (from ~1998/99) for the demo video

Re: Looking Glass – A new type of holographic interface

#40

Post by DubiousPusher »

westoncb wrote: post #33
pasta wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get your comment. In my mind you can render $x pixels at 60fps. So the number of pixels for each distinct view is: $x / 45.

You're right. This is essentially meaningless: "Now that GPUs can reliably generate 60 FPS ...." That depends entirely on what you're rendering. You could reliably hit over 60 FPS for decades—for some content. And now you can still render at .000000001 FPS for other content. Saying "GPUs can generate 60 FPS" is presenting the situation as if framerate were a function of hardware only, whereas the reality of the situa…

Yeah, this is total cart before the horse. Cards aren't built to target specifically 60fps. They're built to perform as many operations as possible. Then content creators push the card as hard as they can while attempting to maintain 60fps. The graphics engine authors out there are always clamouring for more ops with active plans of how to use them. So any extra memory of ops the GPU makers provide will almost immediately be used up. Further complicating things, display technology is always advancing, adding more pixels to render.

I remember this moment when Crytek released a real-time raytraced demo of one of their games running on the best hardware avaipat at the time. It felt like, finally the hardware is capable and now it's a slow march to the end of raster graphics. Then 4K displays came along and totally exploded the number of pixels to render and that was pretty much the end of that talk, at least for a couple decades.

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