The Possibilities of 3D Displays In Vapor Gettin’ Closer

by Josh on June 24, 2008 · Comments

That atomic rubidium vapor you’ve been storing in those old canning jars may soon be put to good use as a storage medium for images which, in turn, could allow 3D data storage, display and possibly manipulation.

A group of physicists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel… yeah, that place, warmed up some of that naturally occurring isotope, added some light pulses, shifted some phases and got an image to stick for about 30 microseconds. That’s… not long, but hey it’s progress.

Possibility of 3D in vapor?
You add some fancy lasers to provide some volumetric recognition, a couple light sources with different wavelengths and a bit of IR feedback to a control device and you’re pretty much there. A couple million in funding wouldn’t hurt either. The next step beyond this could even be using water vapor as a 3D display medium.

This may not seem all to practical, but it’s one avenue of data visualization research that could make the display technology we actually would use in the near future more likely. 3D holographic displays would be a perfect transition for the display of 3D data via water or gas vapor. The trick is taking it from static to dynamic.

Via PhsyOrg
Photo: CISL

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Comments
  • Josh
    yeah, you can actually get the ,a href="http://www.amazon.com/iZ3D-Panel-Computer-Gaming-Monitor/dp/B001B04YY6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s;=electronics&qid;=1214419916&sr;=8-2">iZ3D '3D monitor' on Amazon right now. I've been trying to get ahold of a Philips monitor for sometime now trying to test, but have been unable to thus far.
  • rhalexype
    I know it's not quite the same but... Philips have just released a 22" WOWvx enabled pseudo-3D display... Dunno what it's like; anyone seen it???
  • rhalexype
    That's great... I can NOW build me "killer" (as in amazing not literally!) robotic suit using the 3D display and the parts from the SW Robot challenge a la Tony Stark!!!
  • Bill
    I recall Texas Instruments displaying something like this 10-15 years ago. They were developing it for air traffic control.
  • Josh
    Yeah Jeff, I seen some tech on getting displays onto vapor. It's kinda interesting and thought it would spark some ideas and awareness of what is going on in that field. multi-touch is one thing, but 3D CAD on multi-touch? it's happening yeah, but modeling 3D in actual space is so much more... 3D.
  • That was COE 2004 so I have been waiting anxiously for a few years for a big announcement. I guess this is it.
  • Josh,

    I saw a video of a working prototype system like this at COE in Detroit (Dassault's version of SolidWorks World). I don't know if they guy was just really good at Photoshop and After Effects but it looked like they had the thing working pretty well. It looked just like Star Wars, "Help me Obi-Wan..." but without the cinnamon buns on the side of the princess' head.

    Jeff
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