Hologram Experts Can Now Create Real-Life Images That Move in the Air – Like a “A 3D Printer for Light” - SciTechDaily

A tiny Starship Enterprise fires on a tiny Klingon Battle cruiser with real animated images created in thin air.

Using lasers to create the displays of science fiction, inspired by Star Wars and Star Trek.

Inspired by the displays of science fiction, the researchers have also engineered battles between equally small versions of the Starship Enterprise and a Klingon Battle Cruiser that incorporate photon torpedoes launching and striking the enemy vessel that you can see with the naked eye.

“What you’re seeing in the scenes we create is real; there is nothing computer generated about them,” said lead researcher Dan Smalley, a professor of electrical engineering at BYU.

BYU’s holography research team use lasers to create the displays of science fiction, inspired by Star Wars and Star Trek.

Called optical trap displays, they’re created by trapping a single particle in the air with a laser beam and then moving that particle around, leaving behind a laser-illuminated path that floats in midair; like a “a 3D printer for light.”.

“Most 3D displays require you to look at a screen, but our technology allows us to create images floating in space — and they’re physical; not some mirage,” Smalley said.

“This technology can make it possible to create vibrant animated content that orbits around or crawls on or explodes out of every day physical objects.”.

To demonstrate that principle, the team has created virtual stick figures that walk in thin air.

The work overcomes a limiting factor to optical trap displays: wherein this technology lacks the ability to show virtual images, Smalley and Rogers show it is possible to simulate virtual images by employing a time-varying perspective projection backdrop.

Reference: “Simulating virtual images in optical trap displays” by Wesley Rogers and Daniel Smalley, 6 April 2021, Scientific Reports

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May 6, 2021