We had the opportunity to attend SIGGRAPH 2011, Vancouver this past week and were really happy with what we saw. It takes a certain level of innovation to excite us at this stage of the game but the exhibitors this year definitely did not disappoint. The video above is a compilation of just some of the things we got to see in the Emerging Technologies section of the event.

Since it is not entirely clear what the functions of everything in the video is, I will do my best to explain each briefly in order here:
(please keep in mind that some of these names are not official)

Face-to-Avatar: A blimp that houses a projector, microphone, and camera for new age telepresence applications. It can display either a static image or a stream being sent to its on board wireless receiver.
Cyclone Display: A display that spins disks with different patterns on them. The speed of the disk, along with the speed that the projector is flickering at, determines what colors you will see. Essentially each disk is a sort of pixel.
ISCAN3D: A 3D scanner for your iPhone that works in a few minutes on just input from 5-30 pictures.
InteractiveTop: A twist on the game of tops with graphics and sounds galore. It tracks the collisions and features a magnetic controller for each top too.
Mommy Tummy: A strap on tummy that is used to simulate both the joys and stresses of pregnancy.
Recompose: Actuated Surface: A series of actuators that can be controlled using gestures as well as direct manipulation.
Vection Field: A device that can influence pedestrians to walk in a certain direction by displaying a certain dynamic pattern.
Toucheo: An immersive multi-touch workstation that can be used to easily manipulate 3D assets.
Telenoid: A telepresence robot that can transmit voice and facial movements and is neither male nor female, young nor old.
Virtual Crepe Maker: A haptic representation of fluid dynamics that has been made fun by the crepe making game.
True 3D Display: A 3D display that uses laser-plasma technology to output a virtual object with the amazing resolution of 50,000 points per second. (A part broke in transit and they only were able to operate it at half of its capability.
Thermal Interactive Media: A display that senses the temperature of its input and reacts accordingly.
PocoPoco: A new age musical interface and sequencer with 16 solenoids that are loaded with sensors.
HAPMAP: A sort of haptic navigation in which the user holds a device in their hand which simulates the feeling of sliding your hand along a railing. The “rail” is on a pivoting actuator so that it can steer the user in the right direction.

Where were you on October 21st, 2010? Listen to Patricia Rangel, AV Concepts Director of Technology, and Richard Steinau, AV Concepts Vice President, talk about 3D Holographic Projections. Patricia Rangel received her Master of Fine Arts in Management from CalArts. At AV Concepts Ms. Rangel works exclusively with the Musion 3D Holographic Stage and integration of emerging technologies for custom solutions. Her work includes experience in fully immersive Virtual Reality, 3D Stereoscopic Projection, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Virtual Configurators, Brain-Computer Interface, and Virtual Worlds. As a professional laser holographer, she has exhibited her work at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the Burning Man Festival, and San Diego Space 4 Art.

This video is copyrighted by ImmersiveTech: immersivetech.org

Holograms have been around for years, with the first images created in the 60’s. Back then the technique was to fire a laser at an object and then record the patterns of interference in the light waves onto a photo sensitive material. Later, rainbow type holograms (such as those used on credit cards) were, and still are, created by using a technique whereby white light is reflected off a silver backing through a plastic film that contains several different images of a single object.

The team at Osaka took another approach, they use both lasers and white light. They first fire a laser at an object, say an apple, to create an interference pattern, but instead of just one laser color, they actually use three; red, green and blue. The interference pattern is then captured on a light sensitive material which is coated with silver (because it contains electrons that are easily excited by white light) and silicon dioxide (to help steer the waves). They then shine a steady white light on the metal sheathed material exciting the free electrons, causing the creation of surface plasmons, which results in the regeneration of the captured image as a true-color 3-D hologram; one that can be viewed from almost any angle and is the same colors as the original object.

Currently, the technique has only been shown to work on still images, and the results displayed on a very small surface area (about as big as a baseball card), but the results of research is nonetheless a very big step towards creating not just more realistic holograms, but true animated 3D technology.

For those of you more technically inclined, see: “Surface-Plasmon Holography with White-Light Illumination,” by M. Ozaki et al., Science 8 April 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6026 pp. 218-220. DOI: 10.1126/science.1201045

Japan’s newest singing sensation is a… Hologram. No, that’s not a typo! It’s amazing where technology is headed these days! Over in Japan Cryton Future Media is actually starting projector concerts using a actual live band to compliment their virtual vocaloid idols like Hatsune Miku. Regardless of being a Hatsune Miku fan or not, just seeing what technology can accomplish is just amazing. While this technically isn’t a ‘true’ hologram (one where light actually takes up volumetric space rather than just a planar surface) like the one we’ve all seen of in Star Wars, it is still nevertheless quite impressive how real this appears!

According to SingularityHub, Hatsune Miku is a based off of the singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media. Miku’s voice comes from Yamaha’s Vocaloid synthesizing technology and is sampled off of a real person’s voice–Japanese actress (but not singer) Saki Fujita. Regular, technologically-inclined users (such as yourselves) can purchase the Vocaloid software with an avatar (such as Miku) for 15,750 yen (about $190), and create their own songs to share with others. The software is reportedly rather in-depth and allows users to connect vocals note-by-note.

The virtual characters have gotten so big that people are no longer satisfied with diving into this world on the internet–Hatsune Miku gave her first concert on March 9, 2010, at Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba. Zepp Tokyo is a moderately-sized concert hall that holds about 3000 people standing, and you can see from her videos that her fans are not only numerous but rabid. If the single concert wasn’t enough to convince you that this is a phenomenon, there have also been screenings of the concert in San Francisco and New York.

Take a look, if 3,000 people are excited about a singing hologram, imagine where we’ll be in a few years where we can interact with these holograms!

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

Follow us on Twitter: @immersivetechla
This video is copyrighted by Crypton Future Media: www.crypton.co.jp

On Monday January 21, Britain’s Prince Charles gave a speech at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, although he wasn’t really there. Instead, a 3-D holographic projection of the Prince, recorded last year in the United Kingdom. The Hologram of Prince Charles was and projected as a life-size, three-dimensional image onto the stage of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. His Royal Hologram as he was dubbed by press, delivered a powerful speech on the environment to the world’s leaders before vanishing into thin air. By using the Eyeliner System instead of attending the summit in person, which significantly reduced his carbon footprint, saving an estimated 20 tons of carbon waste. Imagine that! So much for stage fright, one could perform without having an actual audience in frontof them. How about working customer service for a major corporation? The whole idea of teleprescence will revolutionize how we conduct our everyday lives!

The world’s first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

Follow us on Twitter: @immersivetechla

This video is copyrighted by Associated Press: www.ap.org

Musion Eyeliner is a high definition 3D holographic video projection system allowing a spectacular 3-dimensional moving life-size hologram to appear within a live stage setting using Peppers Ghost technology. Eyeliner brings dramatic, previously unseen 21st century video film effects to live events, including audiovisual artistic performances, conference or trade show presentations, retail displays and large-scale digital signage. Musion Eyeliner uses a specially developed foil that reflects images from high definition video projectors, making it possible to produce virtual holographic images of variable sizes and incredible clarity, using industry standard software. Infinitely configurable, the virtual hologram appears within a stage set. Take note that there has been no post production editing with this video so what you see is an uneditted live recording. Pretty trippy I would have to say and fun to watch!

The world’s first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

Follow us on Twitter: @immersivetechla

This video is copyrighted by Chris Cairns: vimeo.com/9543537

Three Christie Roadster HD18K DLP projectors were used for the first-ever transmission of live, interactive 3D holograms from London and Montreal to Orlando, Florida from June 17-19, 2009. The interactive transmission process is known as Musion Live Stage telepresence and offers a new way for people to holographically communicate face-to-face in real time, crossing the boundaries of geographic distance.

This clip does a pretty good explaination of how their projector technology works, however, this is not the only method to holograms. Hopefully we’ll start seeing a convergence of these different hologram technology to be streamlined into mainstream industry which will then drive the cost down and make it affordable to the everyday consumer!

The world’s first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

Follow us on Twitter: @immersivetechla
This video is copyrighted by Christie Digital: www.christiedigital.com

Later this month, and for the first time in the United States the RayModeler will be showcased at SIGGRAPH 2010 at the Los Angeles Convention Center July 25-29. Whether you are a developer, animator, gamer, educator and scientist or just interested in the latest 3D technology, head over to the Emerging Technologies section of the show and make sure to see the Sony display firsthand. Can you imagine how this kind of 3D technology will become part of our everyday lives.

Granted this is far from the type of hologram that we see from Star Wars, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. I wonder how much this will cost. Anyone care to make a venture as to how much they think this will cost or how much you’d be wiling to drop for this?

The world’s first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

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This video is copyrighted by Sony: www.sony.com

What is Virtual Reality (VR)? The Meddling Geniuses at ImmersiveTech break it down and explain it in plain simple English. There is more virutal reality around than you think. Granted we still have quite a way to go but every journey begins with a first step.

Virtual reality is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that simulate places in the real world as well as imaginary ones. It takes your ~current~ reality and ~replaces~ it with a virtual one. The first widely accepted ~digital~ virtual reality was created by the US Air Force in 1966 as part of their flight simulation training, however traces of attempts to ~replace~ reality predating digital computing can be found as far back as the 1860′s when 360 art through panoramic murals began to appear.

The world’s first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : www.immersivetech.org

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This video is copyrighted by ImmersiveTech: www.immersivetech.org

Inition 3D has developed filming equipment that films in 3D live. Two different lenses on the same camera film at the same time. A few England rugby players explore its possibilities. Filming in 3D live will change the way sports fans experience games, events, and competitions. Viewers will be immersed into the opening ceremonies of major sports events using the special filming equipment.

Stadiums would definitely be in a pickle. But this is an amazing development to be able to feel like you’re IN the game. The definition of “watching” and “being at places” would change so much. What would happen to stadiums and other places that depend on live viewing of events?

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Video courtesy of Inition 3D. Inition homepage