3 ms·

I wish we could just move to holograms. What's holding us back exactly? I could never find a straight answer.

• gjm11 17y ago
  Updating them in real time is difficult. You need a feature size comparable to the wavelength of the light being used, which would mean somewhat less than 1um. The smallest pixel sizes in LCDs these days are on the order of 5um across or so. Other kinds of imagers (DLP, for instance) are comparable or worse.
  • tocomment 17y ago
    I don't understand. Can't we just have holograms with lower resolution?
    • eru 17y ago
      Holograms don't work that way. It's a bit like a fourier-transform: One pixel on your holographic display does not correspond to one tiny feature in your image. (Perhaps you can find more answers in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Generated_Holography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Generated_Holography and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography for the basics.)
  • Splines 17y ago
    I played a 3-d game that had the same game mechanics as Dragon's Lair (the protagonist was a time-traveling cowboy). While each scene was pre-rendered (it was pre-recorded live action), the effect was impressive, especially considering this was probably about 15 years ago. edit: Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_(video_game)
• ars 17y ago
  Computers are not fast enough yet to calculate them in real time.