Multivox: Volumetric Display

(github.com)

209 points | by jk_tech 7 hours ago

15 comments

  • Terr_ 0 minutes ago
    [delayed]
  • JKCalhoun 6 hours ago
    In case you miss it, a video of the thing in operation is linked: https://youtu.be/pcAEqbYwixU

    Reminds me that there are limitations to volumetric displays—namely that, since you have no idea where the viewer is located, there is no backface culling you can perform. So it seems to work best for "cutaway" views.

    I'd like to see one in person. Might be "magical" — the video only kind of hints at this.

    • lawlessone 3 hours ago
      I can see it making a great "radar" peripheral for 3d space games, think Elite Dangerous or No Mans Sky that both have one in their cockpits.
  • thesz 6 hours ago
    These displays use rotating mechanisms.

    This ones does not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrfBjRp61iY

    Volumetric display in the video above uses static projector whose pixels light up etchings inside solid glass.

    • wowczarek 8 minutes ago
      Whatever the outcome, when someone sets up an optical table, I'm sold.
    • yboris 1 hour ago
      Thank you for sharing - it's a brilliant piece of tech. I posted this earlier but it didn't catch on with upvoting

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137203

    • probablycorey 6 hours ago
      The same person built both of these.
    • ge96 4 hours ago
      feel like I saw this in a hackaday, at least remember hearing the podcast about projecting all the rays at all intersections, it was green though maybe I'm thinking of something else

      oh wow yeah I've seen a lot of this channel's work before the lego display, the CV fiber optic bundle display

  • bananananna3654 3 hours ago
    This one uses a projector on oscillating rubber bands so that you can reach in and touch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwKOXxX9Ck
  • wowczarek 7 minutes ago
    Doom or Quake renderer coming when?
  • limbicsystem 3 hours ago
    This guy's entire output is incredible (from alien tellitubbies onwards). Go moose! https://mastodon.social/@ancientjames
  • btbuildem 3 hours ago
    Before I watched the video, my brain ran ahead and I imagined it would be one of those led "fans", except also rotating around it's base. It might be harder to sync the two rotations, but you'd have much less mass in motion that way.

    The solid state ones are cool! The real mystery there is how the pixel volume was manufactured -- it doesn't seem like something easily DIY'd

    • raphman 2 hours ago
      There are companies that laser-'etch' 3D images into glass. I guess it's not that hard to find one that accepts a list of xyz coordinates.
  • msuniverse2026 3 hours ago
    I wonder if you could have a vibrating chladni plate with sand on it and you match when the sand should jump with the light that's meant to be at that spot. You get the interruption of light looking like a mid-air pixel and then when it isn't needed it drops back down allowing light to pass through. Kind of like one of those mist-screens except there isn't mist where you don't need it.
  • tra3 5 hours ago
    Whoa, the intersection of different skills necessary is incredible.

    - software

    - math

    - 3d printing

    - electronics

    Very impressive.

  • lifty 3 hours ago
    Would be great having one of these hooked up to an LLM agent so it can be somehow “embodied”. Like a Siri + volumetric display + speaker. Waiting for a company to build this.
    • kridsdale3 1 hour ago
      Like the Morpheus character near the end of Deus Ex.
  • dllu 6 hours ago
    I once considered making a spinning persistence of vision similar to this one specifically for visualizing lidar data from a spinning automotive lidar. The lidar has 128 beams and you could make a spinning array of 128 1D LED displays at exactly the same beam angles to recreate the point cloud from the lidar.

    Anyway, I was too lazy to make it, but it's super neat to see that someone actually made something similar.

  • qoez 4 hours ago
    Never knew this was possible. I hope some huge company with lots of resources jumps on this and drives up the resolution and price.
    • andblac 1 hour ago
      Check out Voxon [1]. From the specs and youtube videos it seems like it's working on the same principle (rotating LED screen). Fun fact, it was co-founded by none other than Ken Silverman (the creator of Build engine) [2]. They've been pushing commercialization of this technology for years now.

      [1] https://www.voxon.co/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Silverman

    • tclancy 3 hours ago
      >drives up the resolution and price.

      Uh, I get the former but why the latter?

    • Night_Thastus 4 hours ago
      Why would they?

      I mean, I think it's SUPER cool and would not mind one sitting on my desk.

      But from a product standpoint...? It doesn't scale well in size, resolution or refresh rate.

      VR is pretty much better if you want a the kind of immersion I think you'd be looking for, and even selling that is hard.

  • ge96 4 hours ago
    interesting it is different than these kinds

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM7wsXcYQFM

    which I guess is the "volume" part

  • simultsop 3 hours ago
    Amazing, finally a refreshing, motivation source!
  • iberator 4 hours ago
    DOES IT RUN DOOM?! seriously