#96: Holograms from Light Field Capture

In his post outlining the coming future of displaying real-world content in a holographic display, Looking Glass Factory CEO Shawn Frayne pointed to one method as the most high-fidelity when it comes to capturing real-world scenes and people.

The process relies on setting up a rig to capture a given scene from several different angles, and it's important because it allows the capture of an entire scene rather than an single isolated subject. Unlike previously mentioned capture techniques, the images produced via light field capture go directly into a light field display, bypassing the step of digitally assembling a 3D mesh.

This technique does indeed result in incredibly high quality stills, but it can also be used to create lifelike holographic videos as well. Looking Glass Factory Co-Founder & CTO Alex Hornstein has been experimenting in this particular area for years, and we're excited about the impact his work will have on the very near future.

Our team at CES2020 were making light field captures of attendees to help folks achieve their unspoken goal of meeting the holographic version of themselves. More on that in another post :)

We're not the only ones working on this. Visby and Google are experimenting with light field capture rigs as well. The technology is emerging, but as more and more light field displays (AKA Looking Glasses) arrive to users, we expect to see more folks developing capture rigs of their own.

Putting it lightly, the future's looking pretty darn bright.

**this is part of our “100 Days of Holograms” series, where a few of us in the team at Looking Glass Factory post one new wonderful or weird (or both!) use for the Looking Glass holographic display being conjured around the world each day.