The light field lab shows the latest hologram tech: floating, talking

Find the ether, the floating head. His disembodied face is hovering in the air like a magic trick, but he’s talking to me and cracking jokes like a real life person.

This isn’t old-school smoke-and-mirrors.(Opens in a new window) Illusion. He is not an actor who sticks his head in a dark box.(Opens in a new window). No, it’s a state-of-the-art hologram made of billions of pixels. About 2 feet behind the ethernet is a 28-inch display that controls lighting. It delivers a wave of photons that converge and scatter, causing my eyes to see the image of a talking head in life-like 3D.

In other words, the display is “making things look indistinguishable from reality and only work with light,” said John Carafin, CEO of San Jose-based Light Field Labs.(Opens in a new window).

In the year In October 2021, his company demonstrated “SolidLight” technology to demonstrate that realistic holograms can be achieved. Now Light Field Lab is back with a demonstration of how the company’s holograms can bring 3D characters to life in the real world.

“You don’t even know what you see in our dreams and visions. You just think, ‘Wow, that was a great actor,’ or ‘I’ve never seen him do anything like that.'” said Karafin.

The ether itself is a computer generated image. Only now is it being implemented in the company’s holographic display, which can display CG images from 3D engines including Unreal, Unity and Maya. To make the experience more interactive, a hologram can speak and make facial expressions in real time through motion-capture technology. A person on the other side of the Light Field Lab offices sounds the ether, and sensors and computer algorithms capture the facial expressions and translate them into a computer-generated image.

The result is an interactive feature. The visual quality is not perfect; Sometimes the image creates a small ghostly presence. Still, the company’s technology makes the face of the Ether fully 3D with a 100-degree viewing angle at 200 nits of brightness. Staring at the hologram will become clearer as you get closer and try to touch the ether. You feel nothing because you are trying to touch the light.

Ether: Coming to a theme park near you?

The demo is just a taste of what Light Field Labs plans to achieve. A single 28-inch SolidLight display can create an image of the ether in an 8-inch space. But a much larger display, at 90 inches, can produce a full-body hologram.

Light Field Lab’s technology uses principles based on how our eyes see things to create 3D floating objects. (Credit: Light Field Lab)

It’s not hard to imagine the technology powering famous characters or 3D exhibits at a theme park or museum, perhaps with motion-captured actors or AI-powered programming. But it’s clear that a similar system could usher in the next generation of video conferencing.

“On the Internet, you can live stream someone talking to you, and they’re taken into the room with you,” Carafin added.

The company’s long-term goal is to build an ecosystem to support lifelike content and release all kinds of holographic displays to both businesses and consumers. But the big question at launch is when it will start appearing in public spaces for consumers to see.

Today, Lightfield Lab announced another step toward that goal with $50 million in Series B funding from Korean game developer NCSoft, which is led by Korean game developer NCSoft, which includes Corning, LG, Samsung, and Verizon.

A computer connected to a holographic display can run 3D graphics built from engines including Enril, Unity, and Maya. (Credit: Light Field Lab)

Lightfield Labs said it will use the money to produce hologram displays that will come as giant video walls in shopping malls, stadiums or corporate lobbies. Carafin hopes to have some of the first demonstrations by the company’s enterprise customers announced in 2024.

“You’re going to start seeing these in late 2024 to 2025, you’re going to start seeing them in public,” Caraffin said. “I hedge a little because we don’t control our customers’ marketing, so I want to make sure they have the freedom to market from their side.”

But similarly, Light Field Lab plans to demonstrate SolidLight displays on its own, possibly as late as 2024.

28-inch holographic display components from Light Field Lab. (Credit: Light Field Lab)

The dates have reached the conservative end of Karafi’s Solidlight launch schedule. (He gave a “one to three year” timeframe for the technology’s public arrival in 2021.) Carafin is now focused on next year’s production of the company’s 28-inch displays that can generate holograms.

These displays are not sold as individual units. Instead, they are packaged as giant video walls, ranging from 90 inches to 312 inches. Caraffin did not disclose the exact price of the display, but the technology is comparable to video wall technology, which can range from $25,000 to $200,000 or more, depending on the size.

Lightfield Lab’s technology is currently targeting video walls and can reach different sizes. (Credit: Light Field Lab)

So now the goal is not to sell the first units to consumers, but to mainstream businesses that want to please the public. Meanwhile, Light Field Lab hopes the Aether demo will attract engineers to join the startup, which currently has about 25 full-time employees.

Light Field Lab plans to manufacture the displays in San Jose, where the company is expanding its office space and expects to double its workforce by the end of 2024. In the near future they, “Karafin added.