Volumetric Display: Star Wars-inspired Tech You Can Buy Right Now

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Volumetric Display

A volumetric display device is a graphic display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects. One definition offered by pioneers in the field is that volumetric displays create 3D imagery via the emission, scattering, or relaying of illumination from well-defined regions in (x,y,z) space.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Volumetric display

Chapter 2: Photolithography

Chapter 3: Holography

Chapter 4: Stereoscopy

Chapter 5: Voxel

Chapter 6: Tomography

Chapter 7: Display device

Chapter 8: Scientific visualization

Chapter 9: Optical coherence tomography

Chapter 10: Volume rendering

Chapter 11: Light field

Chapter 12: Stereo display

Chapter 13: Autostereoscopy

Chapter 14: HoloVID

Chapter 15: Holographic display

Chapter 16: Structured-light 3D scanner

Chapter 17: Spinning mirror system

Chapter 18: Multiscopy

Chapter 19: Microscanner

Chapter 20: MotionParallax3D

Chapter 21: Scanning Fiber Endoscope (SFE)

(II) Answering the public top questions about volumetric display.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of volumetric display in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of volumetric display' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of volumetric display.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Feb 21, 2022

Book preview

Other Books by The Author

1 - Plasma Propulsion

2 - Pulse Detonation Engine

3 - Agricultural Robotics

4 - Closed Ecological Systems

5 - Cultured Meat

6 - Vertical Farming

7 - Autonomous Vehicles

8 - Autonomous Drones

9 - Autonomous Robotics

10 - Autonomous Weapons

11 - Arcology

12 - 4D Printing

13 - Domed City

14 - Distributed Ledger

15 - Digital Currency

16 - Decentralized Finance

17 - Smart Machines

18 - Aerogel

19 - Amorphous Metal

20 - Bioplastic

21 - Conductive Polymer

22 - Cryogenic Treatment

23 - Dynamic Armour

24 - Fullerene

25 - Graphene

26 - Lab on a Chip

27 - High Temperature Superconductivity

28 - Magnetic Nanoparticles

29 - Magnetorheological Fluid

30 - Microfluidics

31 - Superfluidity

32 - Metamaterial

33 - Metal Foam

34 - Multi Function Structure

35 - Nanomaterials

36 - Programmable Matter

37 - Quantum Dot

38 - Silicene

39 - Superalloy

40 - Synthetic Diamond

41 - Time Crystal

42 - Translucent Concrete

43 - Brain Computer Interface

44 - Volumetric Display

45 - Laser TV

46 - Holography

47 - Optical Transistor

48 - Screenless Video

49 - Swarm Intelligence

Series by The Author

Emerging Technologies in Aerospace

1 - Plasma Propulsion

2 - Pulse Detonation Engine

Emerging Technologies in Agriculture

1 - Agricultural Robotics

2 - Closed Ecological Systems

3 - Cultured Meat

4 - Vertical Farming

Emerging Technologies in Autonomous Things

1 - Autonomous Vehicles

2 - Autonomous Drones

3 - Autonomous Robotics

4 - Autonomous Weapons

Emerging Technologies in Construction

1 - Arcology

2 - 4D Printing

3 - Domed City

Emerging Technologies in Finance

1 - Distributed Ledger

2 - Digital Currency

3 - Decentralized Finance

Emerging Technologies in Information Technology

1 - Smart Machines

Emerging Technologies in Materials Science

1 - Aerogel

2 - Amorphous Metal

3 - Bioplastic

4 - Conductive Polymer

5 - Cryogenic Treatment

6 - Dynamic Armour

7 - Fullerene

8 - Graphene

9 - Lab on a Chip

10 - High Temperature Superconductivity

11 - Magnetic Nanoparticles

12 - Magnetorheological Fluid

13 - Microfluidics

14 - Superfluidity

15 - Metamaterial

16 - Metal Foam

17 - Multi Function Structure

18 - Nanomaterials

19 - Programmable Matter

20 - Quantum Dot

21 - Silicene

22 - Superalloy

23 - Synthetic Diamond

24 - Time Crystal

25 - Translucent Concrete

Emerging Technologies in Neuroscience

1 - Brain Computer Interface

Emerging Technologies in Optoelectronics

1 - Volumetric Display

2 - Laser TV

3 - Holography

4 - Optical Transistor

5 - Screenless Video

Emerging Technologies in Robotics

1 - Swarm Intelligence

One Billion Knowledgeable

Volumetric Display

Star Wars-inspired tech you can buy right now

Fouad Sabry

Copyright

Volumetric Display Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [e-mail] with the subject line Volumetric Display: Star Wars-inspired tech you can buy right now, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Volumetric Display, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Volumetric Display.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Volumetric Display, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Volumetric Display, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Volumetric Display. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

A volumetric display device is a graphic display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects. One definition offered by pioneers in the field is that volumetric displays create 3D imagery via the emission, scattering, or relaying of illumination from well-defined regions in (x,y,z) space.

Table of Contents

Other Books by The Author

Series by The Author

Volumetric Display

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Volumetric display

Chapter 2: Photolithography

Chapter 3: Holography

Chapter 4: Stereoscopy

Chapter 5: Voxel

Chapter 6: Tomography

Chapter 7: Display device

Chapter 8: Scientific visualization

Chapter 9: Optical coherence tomography

Chapter 10: Volume rendering

Chapter 11: Light field

Chapter 12: Stereo display

Chapter 13: Autostereoscopy

Chapter 14: HoloVID

Chapter 15: Holographic display

Chapter 16: Structured-light 3D scanner

Chapter 17: Spinning mirror system

Chapter 18: Multiscopy

Chapter 19: Microscanner

Chapter 20: MotionParallax3D

Chapter 21: Scanning Fiber Endoscope (SFE)

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Volumetric display

A volumetric display device is a graphic display device that creates a three-dimensional visual representation of an object, as opposed to typical screens' planar images, which approximate depth using a variety of visual effects. Volumetric displays generate 3D visuals through the emission, scattering, or relaying of illumination from well-defined locations in (x,y,z) space, according to one description offered by pioneers in the field.

A true volumetric display renders a digital representation of a real object in a physical space (volume), and the resulting image has similar properties to a real world object, allowing an observer to view it from any direction, focus a camera on a specific detail, and see perspective, which means that parts of the image closer to the viewer appear larger than parts further away.

Volumetric 3D displays are autostereoscopic in the sense that they produce three-dimensional imagery that can be seen with the naked eye.

Volumetric 3D displays represent only one type of 3D display in general. Stereograms/stereoscopes, view-sequential displays, electro-holographic displays, parallax two view displays and parallax panoramagrams (which are typically spatially multiplexed systems such as lenticular-sheet displays and parallax barrier displays), re-imaging systems, and others are other types of 3D displays.

Volumetric displays, though initially proposed in 1912 and a staple of science fiction, are still not extensively employed in ordinary life. Volumetric displays have several potential markets, with applications ranging from medical imaging to mining, education, advertising, simulation, video games, communication, and geophysical visualization. In comparison to other 3D visualisation technologies, such as virtual reality, volumetric displays provide an essentially different form of engagement, allowing a group of people to gather around the display and participate in a natural and sociable manner without the need for 3D glasses or other head gear. 3D objects depicted in a volumetric display can have the same properties as real-world objects, such as focal depth, motion parallax, and vergence.

Contents

1 Types

1.1 Swept-volume display

1.2 Static volume

2 Human–computer interfaces

3 Artistic use

4 Technical challenges

5 See also

6 References

6.1 Footnotes

6.2 Further reading

7 External links

Types

Several attempts have been made to create volumetric imaging devices. There is no officially approved taxonomy of the many volumetric displays, which complicates matters due to the numerous permutations of their properties. For example, illumination in a volumetric display can reach the eye directly from the source or via an intermediate surface such as a mirror or glass; additionally, this surface, which does not have to be tangible, might undergo motion such as oscillation or rotation. One classification is as follows:

Swept-volume display

Swept-surface (or swept-volume) volumetric 3D displays rely on human eyesight persistence to combine a sequence of 3D object slices into a single 3D image. A number of swept-volume displays have been developed.

For example, a 3D scene is computationally divided into a succession of slices that can be rectangular, disc-shaped, or helically cross-sectioned, and then projected onto or off a moving display surface. As the surface moves or rotates, the image on the 2D surface (produced via projection onto the surface, LEDs embedded in the surface, or other ways) changes. Humans experience a continuous volume of light due to the persistence of eyesight. The surface of the display can be reflecting, transmissive, or a combination of the two.

The varifocal mirror architecture is another sort of 3D display that is a candidate member of the class of swept-volume 3D displays. A vibrating mirrored drumhead reflects a succession of patterns from a high-frame-rate 2D image source, such as a vector display, to a corresponding set of depth surfaces, according to one of the first references to this type of technology from 1966.

The Voxon Photonics VX1 is an example of a commercially available Swept-volume display. This display has an 18cm × 18cm * 8cm volume area and can render up to 500 million voxels per second. For medical imaging, content for the VX1 can be developed using Unity or conventional 3D file types such as OBJ, STL, and DICOM.

Voxon VX1 Volumetric Display displaying high-resolution DICOM medical data

Static volume

Volumetric 3D displays with static-volume imaging do not have any macroscopic moving components in the image volume. It is uncertain whether membership in this display class requires the remainder of the system to remain stationary.

This is the most direct type of volumetric display. In the most basic scenario, an addressable volume of space is formed by active parts that are transparent when turned off but opaque or luminous when turned on. When the elements (known as voxels) are active, they form a solid pattern within the display's space.

Several static-volume volumetric 3D displays make use of laser light to stimulate visible radiation in a solid, liquid, or gas. For example, when irradiated by intersecting infrared laser beams of the suitable frequencies, some researchers have relied on two-step upconversion within a rare-earth-doped material.

Recent progress has been on non-tangible (free-space) implementations of the static-volume category, which may someday allow direct interaction with the display. A fog display, for example, can create a 3D image in a volume of space using several projectors, resulting in a static-volume volumetric display.

A 2006 solution eliminates the display medium entirely by employing a focused pulsed infrared laser (approximately 100 pulses per second; each lasting a millisecond) to form balls of luminous plasma at the focal point in normal air. Two rotating mirrors and a sliding lens direct the focal point, allowing it to draw shapes in the air. Because each pulse produces a popping sound, the device crackles while it operates. It can currently generate dots anywhere within a cubic metre. The gadget is claimed to be capable of being scaled up to any size, allowing 3D images to be created in the sky.

Later modifications, such as the use of a plasma globe-like neon/argon/xenon/helium gas mix and a rapid gas recycling system utilizing a hood and vacuum pumps, could allow this technology to achieve two-color (R/W) and possibly RGB imagery by varying the pulse width and intensity of each pulse to tune the emission spectra of the luminous plasma body.

In 2017, a new display known as the 3D Light PAD was published. The display's medium consists of a class of photoactivatable molecules (known as spirhodamines) and digital light-processing (DLP) technology to generate structured light in three dimensions. The technique bypasses the need to use high-powered lasers and the generation of plasma, which alleviates concerns for safety and dramatically improves the accessibility of the three-dimensional displays. UV-light and green-light patterns are aimed at the dye solution, which initiates photoactivation and thus creates the on voxel. The device is capable of displaying a minimal voxel size of 0.68 mm3, with 200 μm resolution, and good stability over hundreds of on–off cycles.

Human–computer interfaces

Volumetric displays' distinctive qualities, including as 360-degree viewing, agreement of converge and accommodation cues, and inherent three-dimensionality, enable new user interface strategies. Recent research has looked into the benefits of volumetric displays in terms of speed and accuracy.

There are many software platforms that provide native and legacy 2D and 3D content to volumetric displays.

Artistic use

Hologlyphics: the aesthetic application of volumetric displays, such as lasers and lissajous curves.

Hologlyphics is a 1994 art form that combines aspects of holography, music, video synthesis, visionary film, sculpture, and improvisation. While this form of display can output visual data in a volume, it is not addressable and