Microsoft Shows Off 3D Concept 'HoloDesk' (VIDEO)

Hang on to your perceptions of reality: Microsoft just released a video of a 3D 'HoloDesk,' a radical system that allows users to seemingly manipulate 3D objects like balls and cubes with their hands.

Check out the video below to see what this means:

Per the video description from the MicrosoftResearch YouTube channel:

HoloDesk is a novel interactive system combining an optical see through display and Kinect camera to create the illusion that users are directly interacting with 3D graphics. A virtual image of a 3D scene is rendered through a half silvered mirror and spatially aligned with the real-world for the viewer. Users easily reach into an interaction volume displaying the virtual image. This allows the user to literally get their hands into the virtual display. A novel real-time algorithm for representing hands and other physical objects, which are sensed by the Kinect inside this volume, allows physically realistic interaction between real and virtual 3D objects.

The HoloDesk project came out of the Sensors and Devices group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, according to Microsoft blogger Steve Clayton at TechNet; that group has "the goal of understanding how advances in technology will impact traditional computing and the ways in which people use and interact with computing devices," according to their website, and they have a number of other 3D-based device concepts, including the very cool Augmented Projector and Touch Mouse.

Using technology adapted from their popular and award-winning Kinect gaming system, Microsoft has developed this HoloDesk, which it views as a possible "playground" for students of physics; a remote collaboration station for people at long distances; and for use in both qualitative and quantitative studies of some sort. Our favorite suggestion, however, is one from the TechNet blog, in which one user wishes to slow it down so that he or she could learn how to juggle.

Head over to the Microsoft Sensors and Devices team's website for more on the HoloDesk and other futuristic concepts.

Take a look at our slideshow (below) to see the coolest Kinect hacks users have attempted so far.

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Comments

[LondonDavid]

03:23 AM on 10/24/2011

The speed at which this is all occurring is astonishing. There was a time when we'd look at sci-fi and say "Oh that's bull - we'll never see that", but now it's actually all happening.

I can't wait to get my Back To The Future hoverboard though...

[p8q2b8ng]

11:57 AM on 10/21/2011

Yes, the almighty t/3/apot.

I am rather disappointed with this. You have to look through the "situated see through display", which kind of ruins the point of it being a hologram. It might as well be a computer screen at that point.

[J242]

05:24 PM on 10/21/2011

Hey, it's a good 1st step. In all reality that's likely going to be the way it is going forward considering that holograms are based on light. How can you illuminate something if there is an object between what is being displayed and the light source itself? You can't. It takes multiple projectors at different angles to create the image and if ANYTHING gets in the way, the illusion is destroyed.

Projecting an "enhanced reality" hologram is hands down, the only way to (currently mind you) interface with hologram style technology. It's a good first step I think.

[p8q2b8ng]

08:48 PM on 10/21/2011

"How can you illuminate something if there is an object between what is being displayed and the light source itself?"
That is a great question, and what I was hoping they figured out. The only way I could think of doing it, seems to be above today's technology, and would take too long to bother explaining. Basically, I have a great explanation for how it works if it was in a sci-fi show.

[jgeurian21]

05:48 PM on 10/21/2011

How do you put your hands into a computer screen? Seriously do you think before you post?

[p8q2b8ng]

08:41 PM on 10/21/2011

The same exact way except with a camera displaying your hands...

[democles]

11:25 AM on 10/21/2011

MIT Media Lab was on this over a decade ago. The contract was for, yes you guessed it: the US Government / Military.

[waldopepper]

09:08 AM on 10/21/2011

BSOD in 3-D. I can't wait.

[jgeurian21]

09:22 AM on 10/21/2011

Way to troll dude.

[waldopepper]

10:02 AM on 10/21/2011

DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run.

[J242]

05:24 PM on 10/21/2011

C'mon, that was funny and you know it. ;)

[Zelaway]

11:55 PM on 10/20/2011

Amazing!

[fuelie]

07:23 PM on 10/20/2011

Is this the forerunner of the Starship Enterprise's HoloDeck? I guess that is why Microsoft had to use the term, HoloDesk, because HoloDeck is probably a Star Trek TM name.

[PTerrys]

03:57 AM on 10/21/2011

Also, it's not a deck.

[J242]

05:26 PM on 10/21/2011

Yet the combination of slides that make up Powerpoint presentations are defined as "decks"? Fail bud. English is a living language where one word can take on multiple meanings based upon usage in society. It's the same reason the term "decimate" is used so often to describe utter destruction when it ACTUALLY means to "reduce by 1/10th"...

[dobberp]

06:27 PM on 10/20/2011

Taken a step further, I'd like to see a way of virtually entering the internet and "traveling" to other locations, stores or social sites where I can take everything in and interact with others

[helioszephyr]

06:40 PM on 10/20/2011

that's also in the works... it's basically like the Star Trek Holodeck.
Can't remember were I read about that and who's working on it.

[J242]

05:27 PM on 10/21/2011

Ahhh, the world of Snow Crash. ;)

[LittleSanityLeft]

06:23 PM on 10/20/2011

Kinect has some amazing potential but that potential is lost when applied to video games as of right now. Input to screen action is laggy, adventure/shooter games are always on rails, moving quickly in one direction or another is impossible, and physical actions like ducking or jumping are so awkward as to make them pointless to attempt. Still, as these videos show the future is bright for the techs future applications.

[StinkyPete0279]

03:24 PM on 10/21/2011

Gotta walk before you can fly.