Holography and settling technologies: Interdependency and ambivalent behaviour

After introducing the concept of touchable holography and its applied technologies hand tracking and airborne ultrasound tactile display, the following entry would like to regard this ensemble as a dispositiv and take a look at relation, behaviour and interaction between original holographic phenomenon and added technologies.

These two added technologies behave in an ambivalent manner, unselfish and parasitical to the same extend.

Airborne ultrasound tactile display and hand tracking put themself into service of holography, which is getting abilities, that without their support holography would not be able to accomplish. Only the positioning of additional technologies enhances the reality of a 3D virtual object. It is no longer just the eye as a witness of the object's existence. The eye's testimony gets confirmation by the sensation of touch onto the user's hand. In this process it doesn't matter if these two impressions are not received from one and the same device as a common source, as long as synchronization of their impulses is fine tuned.

The enhancement of reality is not limited just to proofing the existence of a virtual object. It also leads to new fields of applications, which require tactile feedback to make them work. Therewith settling technologies are not simply opening holography gates to new scopes, but are much more precursors of new phantasms. Regarding original holography technologies, it looks that their abilities are mostly exhausted. It can no longer keep up with all the promises, that it never made by itself. Not just to survive as a medium, but to evolve and not becoming forgotten again and as the basis for further hopes, dreams and wishes, holography is reliant to other technologies, gathering around and helping to embark to new visions.

Settling technologies do not just serve, but also behave parasitical. They (ab)use holography for their part to find application, to survive and to evolve. This remains valid for both technologies, hand tracking and airborne ultrasound tactile display. Even maybe for one a little more and for the other a little less.

In reverse also holography behaves in the same way. Part unselfish, part parasitical. It should not be about an estimation who's taking greatest advantage. It is much more about an interdependency, which this entry want to illustrate.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Live

At the beginning of December 2009 Neurosonics Audiomedical stages a live performance of its original drumkit and turntables video (stills below)

at Musion headquater in London. For this performance by Scratch Perverts the heads have been substituted by holographic images of Beardyman.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Live

Adding technologies of touchable holography to a hologram, the imaging method is getting a surface. A skin, which works as a border defining virtual image and real world. Simultaneously it is the locus, where this antagonism meet.

Crying "Au" and screwing up his face in pain when getting hit by the drumstick, Beardyman reveals what maybe have not appeared that clearly before, regarding Shinoda's work. The sensation of touch is not just given to the observer or user, but to the holographic image as well. The virtual hologram itself gets tactile feedback from the real world. Reminding Analoge Halluzinelle. She can not be touched and felt. And she can not hold objects, because she consists of nothing but light. In reverse she can not touch and feel for the same reason. The Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Live performance illustrates how holography's new skin becomes a resistance to the user's hand and simultaneously a nerve ending to a hologram.

The snippet shown above can be considered as an on adding phantasm of an enhancement of reality. Not just the user's reality is augmented by touchable holography, but holography's as well. This enhancement is the foundation for a hologram to react to the real world and to learn.

In his latest science fiction novel [LIMIT] author Frank Schätzing lets his main character Owen Jericho being guided by holographic image of travel guide Yoyo. To project her virtual image on the streets of Shanghai, Owen wears holo spectacles by Tu Technologies, which in the story is a leading enterprise for holography and virtual ambience. Walking along Fuxing Son Lu and the french quarter, crowds of pedestrians passes by. He is amazed Yoyo is not bumping into them. This of course would have no effect, but people walking right through the image of his companion. Which would broken the illusion of her image. But Yoyo reacts to her surroundings and steps aside avoiding collisions. She appears at Jericho's side without indicating disillusioning features like other avatars.

Airborne ultrasound tactile display

About one year prior Hiroyuki Shinoda adds the Wiimote hand tracking system to make up touchable holography preliminary, he presents an airborne ultrasound tactile display at SIGGRAPH 2008 (International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactice Techniques), which ought to be introduced a little more detailed in this entry, as the second method of touchable holography - excluding the projection of a 3D floating image.

Airborne ultrasound tactile display radiates airborne ultrasound and produces high-fidelity pressure fields onto a user's hand. This method is based on a nonlinear phenomenon of ultrasound. Unlike air-jet, generated fields of static pressure can be localized and do not cause unnecessary vibrations. When this propagation of ultrasound is interrupted by an object, a pressure field is exerted onto its surface. This pressure is called acoustic radiation pressure. The spatial distribution of ultrasound is controlled by multiple ultrasound transducers, based on wave field synthesis techniques. Using these techniques, various patterns of pressure field can be produced in 3D free space. Airborne ultrasound can be applied directly onto the skin without the risk of penetration. Tactile feedback is provided to the users' hand without requiring gloves or any other mechanical attachments.

Airborne ultrasound tactile display

Tactile feedback is superimposed over 3D graphics projection. The generated pressure field corresponds with the 3D virtual image. The sensation of touch would be broken, for the synchronization between pressure field and image doesn't work.

The goal of this technique is to considerably improve the usability of systems, which enables users to manipulate 3D graphic objects with their hands. It can find application e. g. in video games or 3D modeling software. "It might also be useful to manipulate small particles or probingg the surface of an object to measure the viscoelastic properties of the object from a distant point."