Holograms and Interactivity
For this project I explored holograms, or false holograms, and created a video documenting the learning through making process. Holograms are one of the many techniques utilized in film to show characters interacting with virtual spaces.
For this project I explored a technology that was new and foreign to me, holograms. I discovered early in my research that what I assumed was a hologram was actually light projection on glass and that holograms are extremely rare and expensive to create. Most of the things people assume are holograms are false holograms. I began with an in-depth review of companies that are making holograms and companies that are making various forms of pepper’s ghosts, or reflection on glass.
For my learning through making I created a pepper’s ghost in 3D in order to better illustrator what it was to a new learner.
A peppers ghost illusion was originally created for theater. The Red Figure is the main performer.
Hidden in a room to the side or beneath is a second performer, the Blue Figure. The audience does not see this figure.
A piece of glass is placed at an angle from the Blue Figure. This piece of glass will capture a reflection of the Blue Figure.
When the lights are bright in the room with the Blue Figure and dark in the room with the Red Figure you can see a ghostly reflection of the Blue Figure on the stage.
This last image shows what the audience would see.
I then explored various tools and techniques around these light/hologram illusions. I worked with several designs and created my own projection on glass system in order to create an interactive false hologram. Below is an image of the various tools I experimented with in the video above.
I then recorded my progress in the video above working with each of the tools shown here. The leap motion is a hand tracking system that I used when testing with the mini projector on glass. The buttermilk was a test to see if it was a reasonable replacement to allow the projector to be visible on the glass compared to the more expensive rear projector clear adhesive. The holographic prism and the Hologram LED Fan ended up being interesting experiments in video capture of real world light projections, a known issue for both holograms and false holograms.
The pepper’s cone is a holographic prism that is small and plastic and can rest on a phone or tablet screen. If an image is split into four directions in a specific way the cone creates an illusion of a 3D image.
First I created an image sequence of a spinning cone in Maya
Second I put that image sequence into After Effects and rotated it four ways 90 degrees apart with space in the center.
This image shows a capture of the pepper’s cone on my phone that is playing the video.
The image is even stronger when the lights are turned out.
The main exploration was with the leap motion, projector, and glass. My thesis thread follows how the digital and the physical world align on 2D film. Capturing interactivity, a key difference between traditional 2D film and digital spaces that include interactivity, is an important exploration for my thread. Installing the hand motion tracking, setting up the projector, and testing various methods of capturing the projected light on the glass surface took up most of the project timeline.
Here is a photo of me setting up the glass, projector, and the leap motion is visible on my laptop. I used software that came free with leap motion to test if my hand motion would track against the projected glass.
