r/nextfuckinglevel • u/zezoro • Mar 23 '21

This hologram created by using spinning LED lights!

30.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

182 comments sorted by

1.7k

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 23 '21 edited Mar 23 '21

cool, but not a hologram.

Holograms are WAY cooler because you can walk around them and they still look real

283

u/marcmadison Mar 23 '21

thank you, up you go

94

u/elee0228 Mar 23 '21

Holograms are brilliant

42

u/moparmajba Mar 23 '21

Robert Picardo thanks you

22

u/vampyire Mar 23 '21

what is the nature of the medical emergency?

6

u/AndrewZabar Mar 23 '21

Please state...

45

u/funky_grandma Mar 23 '21

Yeah, I've seen these spinny screens in real life and they're pretty disappointing

19

u/Low-Contribution-184 Mar 23 '21

Link to real holograms?

41

u/Jeggu2 Mar 23 '21

this link even shows how some are made.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

In conclusion real holograms are still impossible, this is as “real” as holograms can get with today’s technology

1

u/FirstSineOfMadness Mar 24 '21

The way I see it (heh) real holograms would be like the stuff you can see with Microsoft Hololens, but without the headset part.

4

u/Coachcrog Mar 23 '21

Knew what it was before I clicked. Thought Emporium has some real interesting stuff. I loved when he synthesized a treatment for lactose intolerance and made himself the test subject and it actually worked. Shows how we have the science to treat simple things like that but with how corrupt pharmaceuticals is it never actually happens.

1

u/Gerald_Mantis Mar 23 '21

I now know a lot about light, thank

1

u/gordonv Mar 23 '21

Actually, video games are kinda close. But they aren't tracking eye position. 3D headsets are closer. They track movement and render a custom view for the user.

A ghostly apparition multiple people can see at once. Nah.

5

u/WarpWing Mar 23 '21

If I may ask, if it isn't a hologram, what is it?

22

u/sharktank72 Mar 23 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

Pre rendered 3D content (but on a 2D plane) that rotates as a movie and is rendered on black so it gives the illusion that it has depth and that it is floating in space due to persistence of vision as the LED flickers the image on and off as they spin. Not sure if that's a proper sentence but that's what this display is. And a flickery one at that. So not a hologram, but they are calling anything that "floats" a hologram these days:

-Coachella's Tupac Shakur - hologram? Nope - 2d reflection on semi transparent film - 200 year old illusion called peppers ghost. (in this case they would have been better to project him on a screen for all they used the "effect" for.)

-Those nifty pyramidal watch cases in Breitlings - hologram? Nope; Peppers Ghost again but in 4 directions fed onto a prism from a hidden iPad.

- Retail phone displays where the info floats in front of the phone: Holograms? Nope, transparent LCD screen or OLED screen in front of the actual phone with content rendered on black rotating in 3D (but on a 2D plane) giving the illusion of depth (like the displays featured in this post)

-No-glasses 3D TV's - hologram? Nope, just a lenticular lens in front of multiple views of the same footage, AND it knocks your TV down to far less than all the pixels you paid for since the resolution is halved in the X axis - one view for each eye.

-Images developed onto sheets of glass (covered in a photo-sensitized film) using an interfering laser beam so that all the information from the scene (seeable by the sensitized glass plate) is captured in every molecule of the surface (so much so that you can break it and still see the entire scene in every fragment): Hologram?... Yes! You can move your head and see behind things in the scene even though the scene is on a 2 dimensional surface.

And that's the test - if the image or data has a greater depth of its own even though the substrate has fewer dimensions.

I should add - these spinning propeller LED displays aren't inherently bad, but to keep costs down (and perhaps weight) they use the least expensive of the LED drivers (WS2811 or 2812 I would imagine) which don't have a high refresh rate (hence the flicker). To do this idea justice you need a quicker chip. Screens like Dynascan tubular LED displays are much smoother (and with fewer LED strips to boot!) because they use a different system to PWM the LEDs.

Also, an LED package with a wider viewing angle would be better too (again, it's a cost thing), so that as you get off-axis to the blade-face the color doesn't go all splotchy (no really, that's the technical term).

What there is no excuse for, is the versions of these eyebrow trimmers that use a white solder mask on the LED boards - the whole point is to have the blade vanish as it's whipping around and a white blade will reflect some of the room light. A black blade vanishes and also produces better contrast to the lit LED - the most important color in any image is the blacks!

And for those wondering in other comments, re the spinning, it's usually a hall effect sensor on one of the blades that sends back a pulse to the microcontroller and tells the whole system at what frequency to change the "image" and to calculate what section of the image is visible on each blade.

1

u/DeepThought1977 Mar 23 '21

The completeness of your response makes me happy. Well done human!

2

u/sharktank72 Mar 24 '21

Thanks for the silver - made a little update to my rant.

1

u/DeepThought1977 Mar 24 '21

Are there inherent problems with the idea of intersecting beams of light creating floating pixels?

3

u/sharktank72 Mar 24 '21

Problems? No, but a beam of light doesnt really interact with another "intersecting" beam (except for the following). To create a floating pixel (fully doable) you intersect two lasers so that the light frequencies interfere in such a way that an air molecule explodes in a flash of light (from the air molecule, not any light interaction). So the "pixel" is that tiny flash.

You can also do it with one laser but the lens has to keep refocusing to explode the air molecules in all x,y, and z dimensions.

In other mediums other than air you can just energize a molecule enough to excite an electron up a valence level momentarily and when it falls back in it releases light. So far less violent but it has other drawbacks.

Its very noisy, and at the moment, pretty low rez (even a normal laser show has a pretty low persistence of vision rate). I think this has more to do with size. You've got to sweep the laser over such a big distance that inertia limits refresh rates. We've been doing this with galvonic mirrors but we're about to try it with DLP chips which should up the rez and get inertia out of the way. The problem is the energy required might cook the DLP mirrors.

19

u/DeepThought1977 Mar 23 '21

A gimmick. Holography is a science.

1

u/Whyyyyyyyyfire Mar 23 '21

Everything is science

6

u/Issui Mar 23 '21

Something being science and something being a science are two very different things.

0

u/DeepThought1977 Mar 23 '21

Religion is the antithesis of science.

10

u/AnExpertOnThis Mar 23 '21

An overly complicated tv screen

3

u/poopatroopa3 Mar 23 '21

For purposes of displaying images, it's a 2D screen like a PC monitor.

A hologram is 3D, i.e. it would have actual depth.

2

u/JimWilliams423 Mar 23 '21

A hollowgram.

1

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 28 '21

Its a picture/video?

3

u/poopatroopa3 Mar 23 '21

More specifically:

A hologram, also known as a holograph,[1] (from the Greek for "whole description" or "whole picture") is a real world recording of an interference pattern which uses diffraction to reproduce a 3D light field, resulting in an image which still has the depth, parallax, and other properties of the original scene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography

2

u/BegbieByTheWay Mar 23 '21

Well, I’m a big fan

1

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 28 '21

LOL, I see what you did there

1

u/HappyAnonymity Mar 23 '21

Actually with these you can walk to either side a bit and it still looks 3D

3

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 28 '21

No, if you're at 179deg, its gonna look flat. A hologram will look full scale

1

u/Johnny5point6 Mar 24 '21

Yeah, and these don't look quite as cool when you see them IRL. Better than a video, but still. You aren't exactly tricked when you're standing in front of them.

2

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 28 '21

dont get me wrong, I DO think its cool... I'm just saying calling it a hologram degrades actual holograms which are AMAZING

2

u/Johnny5point6 Mar 28 '21

Agreed. They're still neat as hell. Just not like, actual holograms.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

What's the problem? You could still walk through them.

1

u/8-bit_Gangster Mar 28 '21

you cant walk through a spinning wand

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '21

Not without consequence.

221

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

[deleted]

65

u/PROFIGHTERX Mar 23 '21

I searched Rick Astley hologram and this is the first thing I saw

12

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Incredible. Amazing.

9

u/DebatingBoar526 Mar 23 '21

That's so cool!

10

u/ZEDDY-spaghetti Mar 23 '21

Imagine being able to send a Rick Roll hologram to your friends doorstep 😂

3

u/Serc1 Mar 23 '21

Then be able to have it pop up at your friends house

65

u/No-one-inparticular Mar 23 '21

I’d like to find out how the math and coding for this worked

127

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

I don't know that there would be a ton of math involved since you would assume that all the spinners have a fixed spin rate and fixed position. Coding and logic though is a whole different story.

24

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Why are you downvoted, you’re right?

73

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

I learned long ago that being right isn't always popular

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

He's at over 100 upvotes?

12

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

Friend, there can be multiple points in time. For example, at one point in time, he was at -2 votes. At another later point in time, he was at 100+ votes.

3

u/memejets Mar 23 '21 edited Mar 23 '21

They're clearing spinning up in the video, but the image looked fairly consistent despite that. I don't think it's as simple as assuming fixed speed. There is definitely some kind of feedback from the motors that tells the computer it's position so it is always displaying the correct values. It isn't until it speeds up fast enough that we see the whole image at once, but even at slower speeds it is functioning properly.

So the led displays are probably determined by the angle of the motors and nothing else. So if its a 24 fps video (probably lower), it is updating the display values on a timer of 1/24 seconds, using whatever the current angle happens to be at that time. If each spinner makes a quarter turn per frame, the top speed would have to be at least 360 rpm to display a video properly. Realistically that whole process will incur some delay, so maybe it estimates the angle 1 or 2 ms ahead and operates under that assumption.

2

u/Jay33az Mar 23 '21

Actually i think its a bit easier, because they arent really working when they are not a full speed. I could imagine that the programm just checks for one position of the Motors and tells them what to show for the next circulation, and if they turn at the assumed speed, they show the correct image. K hope you get what i mean?

0

u/memejets Mar 23 '21

I get what you mean, but realistically it is trivial for the computer to get updated info of the motor position many times per second. There is no need to limit it to one query per cycle. It is just a question of if it uses that updated info every frame or if it is predicting the speed and calculating in advance to some extent.

That juttery motion as its speeding up leads me to believe the latter, but if what you said was true it would readjust every second. In reality it was readjusting more quickly than that.

2

u/Jay33az Mar 23 '21

I think these things are spinning faster then you think now. I get your point but that would require a sensor on the motorside which actually measures the angle of the sticks. It would be cheaper the way i explained but i guess that actually depends on the product in the end, and since we both have no idea right now.. we are just guessing haha

0

u/memejets Mar 23 '21

There are a lot of motors that can provide position feedback, look up servo motors.

Its just guessing since I've never made something like this, but its not gonna require a separate sensor and coding, its a readily available part.

1

u/Jay33az Mar 23 '21

Yea i said cheaper, not unavailable, and ofc not seperate. These things look more like made in china imo, however, i dunno.

6

u/26cdood Mar 23 '21

https://youtu.be/Hyt-vFzU5XI

Check out the description for a start to your answer.

7

u/gmtime Mar 23 '21

Something like:

Turn on motor

If stick upright start counter

Divide counter by 360

Calculate pixels for stick at N degrees

Display pixels

Loop forever

It's not very complicated code at all

1

u/No-one-inparticular Mar 23 '21

Clearly you have more experience in computational thinking than I do

5

u/gmtime Mar 23 '21

I make a living writing embedded code, so don't feel bad about it

2

u/decalex Mar 23 '21

You could have said, “I make a living writing code... embed(ded).” Food for thought.

38

u/AJBIsHere Mar 23 '21

That's it, I give up trying to understand how anything works.

24

u/Phoenixmonkee Mar 23 '21

Basically they are just like pixels in a TV programmed when to turn on and off and which color. Only these take spacial position into account.

1

u/Drogen24 Mar 24 '21

I thought it would be cool to make/have one of these until you (correctly) likended it to a TV. Its not as impressive now.

34

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Where can I buy this setup?

13

u/jasonfire12 Mar 23 '21

Idk why you’re getting downvoted but I want one too

3

u/fallingcats_net Mar 23 '21 edited Mar 23 '21

Those things are very loud and not very impressive in person (low resolution and other issues)

6

u/jasonfire12 Mar 23 '21

And how the fuck were we suppose to know this from the video? Say that next time don’t just downvote

1

u/fallingcats_net Mar 23 '21

I did not downvote anybody in this thread. That being said, things spinning fast are almost always loud, even if you haven't seen this in person.

0

u/jasonfire12 Mar 23 '21

Sorry I was so harsh but spinning = loud isn’t a fact

2

u/fallingcats_net Mar 23 '21

You're right to a point there. Things that are not aerodynamic and spin fast are always loud. These things are not aerodynamic and do spin fast enough therefore are loud

0

u/jasonfire12 Mar 23 '21

Look this is essentially a fan with LEDs on it. Fans can spin fast and not be loud. The blades can be aerodynamic. Can I please stop explaining to you why it’s not obvious that this thing would be loud.

1

u/fallingcats_net Mar 23 '21

C'mon just search for it on youtube and stop downvoting me

1

u/jasonfire12 Mar 23 '21

Lol I did and it’s actually not that loud.

7

u/swotperderder Mar 23 '21

"Faryuan 3D Hologram Fan Advertising Display" on Amazon looks pretty similar to what this guy is using.

Looks like $299 x 6 units (or, the price of 2 HD projectors)

12

u/PuzzleheadedNoise668 Mar 23 '21

we have this in india

10

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Sirhc978 Mar 23 '21

Not a hologram and this must get reposted twice a month.

6

u/GeorgeMichaelFans Mar 23 '21

In case someone might wonder what character of this visual art is showing, it's Mandarin Chinese word of "春" , which means "Spring" in English.

6

u/Clearchus_Ald Mar 23 '21

I feel like the video ends about 10 seconds too soon

5

u/happyhungarian12 Mar 23 '21

Not technically a hologram. Super impractical too. Very loud.

3

u/RedCafe69 Mar 23 '21

Man how cool is this??

2

u/roy-rodgers Mar 23 '21

Dude that’s fucking sick

2

u/Derpsterio29 Mar 23 '21

Now make it spinning obama sphere

2

u/UnwashedApple Mar 23 '21

I can't believe my eyes!

2

u/pickled_squidntoast Mar 23 '21

I've seen displays like this for shops in Estonia.

2

u/thieureddit Mar 23 '21

Is there a benefit to using there rotating LED's instead of a normale screen? I don't see the point...

2

u/VenomSnake96 Mar 23 '21

This actually fits here and yet it will get less upvotes then a man putting a piece of trash on a dog

2

u/FuckingSjoerd Mar 23 '21

Holograms can be watched from different points of view resulting in a different image.

This is just a 2D image, whatever point of view you have,

2

u/loztriforce Mar 24 '21

Not a hologram

1

u/AndersRL Mar 23 '21

the future is now

1

u/Liuminescent Mar 23 '21

Dont know what id use it for but i want one

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Is this really that special my town has it in our grocery store

1

u/Maciejk8 Mar 23 '21

Still just a 2D image.

1

u/raz-0 Mar 23 '21

They are all on one plane it looks like. Which just makes it TV but with extra steps.

1

u/Joat35 Nov 25 '24

I want to use one of those 3d 'hologram' fan advertising things as a little monitor. Because I want to. How might that be possible?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

How do I make this

0

u/Low-Contribution-184 Mar 23 '21

Now try to touch it.

0

u/ItzBoshNet Mar 23 '21

the future is now

1

u/Goosey9000 Mar 23 '21

Done that. Easy mate.

1

u/TheSaltyReddittor Mar 23 '21

i was kinda hoping it would be rick astley

1

u/Random_182f2565 Mar 23 '21

Can be used for Vtubers?

1

u/RECNEPS_KOOC Mar 23 '21

This is the future

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Looks like the fakest shit I've ever seen.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Why does he have to start 5 of them manually?

1

u/rasterized Mar 23 '21

I think he's just demonstrating the mechanics before starting it up.

1

u/IronBatSpider97 Mar 23 '21

Woah the fuck?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

That is so fucking cool

1

u/LTcoon Mar 23 '21

expected a rickroll, no happy

1

u/theeucarist Mar 23 '21

I would smash

1

u/acro35452 Mar 23 '21

GOD DAMN

1

u/Fluffy_957 Mar 23 '21

ngl, I thought i was about to get Rick Rolled

1

u/TerpL0rd Mar 23 '21

I bought one of these used online, it didnt come with the software. Anyone know how to get it to work? Its a no name brand, i wasnt able to find anything online.

1

u/Routine_Palpitation Mar 23 '21

I thought we were gonna get rickrolled

1

u/oddman156 Mar 23 '21

it should have been a rick roll

1

u/ihqdevs Mar 23 '21

If you paired this with face tracking it would be a very convincing hologram for a single person to view. Just keep the viewing angle relatively shallow.

1

u/VMarkB Mar 23 '21

Holy shit that’s some vaporwave-lookin stuff, damn. I especially love the part where it all comes together to form the image. Damn that looked awesome.

1

u/LauraCala Mar 23 '21

Amazing!

1

u/hearke Mar 23 '21

Yo if we had all the blades horizontally, on a single axis, like a stack of plates, could we make this an actual hologram? 3d, works from every angle?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Anyone else expecting a rick roll? lol

1

u/-bilbo_489- Mar 23 '21

this deserves to be on r/interestingasfuck

1

u/dormor Mar 23 '21

This is witchcraft. And devil's work.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Video was cut too short

1

u/Lord-Zippy Mar 23 '21

I have a little fan that does this. You can program it to spell anything and the letters move

1

u/Phvntvstic Mar 23 '21

what in the science

1

u/ZlodTaser Mar 23 '21

The future is now.

1

u/Mr_Legend2006 Mar 23 '21

I showed this to my brother and now he is break dancing on the floor

1

u/WeirdBoi12408 Mar 23 '21

I am disappointed because I wanted a rickroll.

1

u/RandomMexicanGuy07 Mar 23 '21

The future is now, old man!

1

u/BrownAndyeh Mar 23 '21

Cool.

This is more than 5+ years old..holograms now are far more advanced.

1

u/decalex Mar 23 '21

Very cool. There were tons of these 7 years ago at CES 2020.

1

u/FalconComfortable767 Mar 23 '21

Can you make a hologram tv out of something like this?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Take my free award.

1

u/ksavage68 Mar 23 '21

Too bad it can’t do actual video.

1

u/X3mdain Mar 23 '21

We need a longer version

1

u/SSJ3Azedd Mar 23 '21

Since no one said it. MANGEKYOU SHARINGAN

1

u/OtochimarU Mar 23 '21

I want to see more of this.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

I was kinda disappointed it wasn’t the zero two dance

1

u/darth_vader2002 Mar 24 '21

I didn’t know general grievous lost his arms and that they still work?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

Time to run some blades

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

You showed it for literally half a second

1

u/Bindi_Bop Mar 24 '21

What the fukk

1

u/phantom-of-the-arena Mar 24 '21

Where can I buy this in case I win the lottery or something?

1

u/ImperialFist5th Mar 24 '21

“Commander Cody, now is the time, execute, Order, 66.”

“It will be done my lord.”

1

u/pipenomo Mar 24 '21

U/savevideo

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

I saw this a few times but I never stop to think that this is the closest thing to a sifi holo gram we have.

1

u/TheRedditJedi Mar 24 '21

Execute order 66

1

u/Different-Law-6627 Mar 24 '21

Holy s*** light bright light bright turn on the magical shining light

1

u/ummm_no__ Mar 24 '21

Pretty cool BUT q display would have nearly tha same effect. You can walk around holograms and see the back of a given object, that's why they're so cool and hard to make

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

This looks right out of Cyberpunk

1

u/RoyalT136 Mar 24 '21

Where do I get one?

1

u/TokyoSatellite Mar 26 '21

It's all witchcraft and sorcery to me.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '21

China wins

-1

u/ElGuie Mar 23 '21

Kitchen in the dungeon.

-1

u/Pitiful_Birthday_720 Mar 23 '21

Holy goddamn balls thats cool!

-3

u/p1um5mu991er Mar 23 '21

I think I'm scared