MIT researchers had hacked the Kinect and found that it was a perfect tool for capturing images to project in 3D for holograms. In particular, they projected a Star-Wars-Style Hologram using a Microsoft Kinect device. Home holography video chat may sound like the stuff of Star Wars, but it’s closer than we think. Holography, like traditional 3D filmmaking, has the end goal of a more immersive video experience, but the tech is completely different. 3D cameras are traditional, fixed cameras, which simply capture two very slightly different streams to be directed to each eye individually--the difference between the two images creates the illusion of depth. If you change your position in front of a 3D movie, the image you see will remain the same--it has depth, but only one perspective. A hologram, on the other hand, is made by capturing the scatter of light bouncing off a scene as data, and then reconstructing that data as a 3D environment.
That allows for much greater immersion--if you change your viewing angle, you'll actually see a different image, just as you can see the front, sides, and back of a real-life object by rotating around it. Capturing that scatter of light is no easy feat. A standard 3D movie camera captures light bouncing off of an object at two different angles, one for each eye. But in the real world, light bounces off of objects at an infinite number of angles. Holographic video systems use devices that produce so-called diffraction fringes, basically fine patterns of light and dark that can bend the light passing through them in predictable ways. A dense enough array of fringe patterns, each bending light in a different direction, can simulate the effect of light bouncing off of a 3D object. The trick is making it live, fast and cheap. It is one of the OBMG’s greatest challenges: the equipment is currently extremely expensive, the amount of data massive.
More information:
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2011-04/leia-your-living-room-creating-holograph-microsoft-kinect
More information:
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2011-04/leia-your-living-room-creating-holograph-microsoft-kinect