13 ms·

Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

585 points by toss1 3y ago

Comfy-Tinwork 3y ago
Wonder how long intelligence agencies have had this.
- throwup238 3y ago
  One comes standard with every shower door.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- forward1 3y ago
  Implants which modulate and reflect incoming radio signals back to the radar device, especially powered by the radio wave itself, is nothing new in clandestine surveillance.
- i8comments 3y ago
  They'd probably put it in lightbulbs (to get a long lasting power source and good viewing angle).
  - 93po 3y ago
    They'd probably pay a contractor $60 million to develop it for the military and not actually wind up with anything of use
sheepscreek 3y ago
This is beyond even science fiction. I could have never imagined something like this was even possible - I still can’t. Is there a demo of this tech in action?
- a2l 3y ago
  Found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ
  - dazhbog 3y ago
    holy shit, the glass camera in action.. Scary
  - adolph 3y ago
    Rough translation of video transcript (YT transcript translated by deepl.com): Lenses. This year's theme is now holograms and it's pretty funny that this is is called a holocam, and it's pretty funny. If you look at it right now, if you look at the spring right here. you can see a little bit of blue you can see a little bit of blue, which is actually what is it? it's actually acting as a camera, so Now, if you listen to the explanation what we call holography. is that it's now reflecting light, so we can gather that light and you can collect that light and act like a camera like a camera, so for example, you can now what? the meat. it can recognize the blue color and only recognize the blue part. Jace's holocam. It's quite interesting.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    great find, this is much better than the article
pushcx 3y ago
I spent a few minutes looking for more info, doesn't seem that Zeiss has published anything but a press release yet: https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr...
- junon 3y ago
  https://www.zeiss.com/oem-solutions/products-solutions/multifunctional-smart-glass.html https://www.zeiss.com/oem-solutions/products-solutions/multi...
- fourteenfour 3y ago
  Here's their CES page with a video: https://exhibitors.ces.tech/8_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?exhid=0014V000042F4rCQAS https://exhibitors.ces.tech/8_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details....
  - airstrike 3y ago
    Thanks for sharing. More of an animation than a proper video
    - stronglikedan 3y ago
      A video of an animation is still a video.
      - airstrike 3y ago
        Hence why I said "proper" video
    - fourteenfour 3y ago
      For sure, was disappointed with the original article for only linking generic keywords back to their own site. At least the CES one is from the horse's mouth.
    - ylere 3y ago
mikewarot 3y ago
Having played with light fields and photography, I have questions. There has to be an imaging sensor somewhere. Where is it? I strongly suspect most of this "magic" will condense out of this cloud into a puddle of marketing sponsored bovine excrement.
- notaustinpowers 3y ago
  > The Holocam technology "uses holographic in-coupling, light guiding and de-coupling elements to redirect the incoming light of a transparent medium to a hidden image sensor." It looks like it still requires a sensor, it can just be hidden in the frame of the glass.
  - ithkuil 3y ago
    Sure it has a sensor, it's not magic. But OTOH if it can capture the POV of a real line of eye contact with another image projected _through_ the camera, the effects are transformative, it doesn't matter whether ultimately there is a sensor somewhere or not
beginning_end 3y ago
That was a truly horrible web-page. Does anyone have a link to the actual technology?
aftbit 3y ago
Do a search on "non line of sight imaging" (aka NLOS). Here's just one public paper.[1] If this is what is being published, what do you think the intelligence agencies have? 1: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2024468118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2024468118
haswell 3y ago
> Given the current fear around hidden cameras in Airbnbs, the idea of every single window (or even shower door) in a rental property being able to spy on you is a little disconcerting. While there are some really interesting potential applications for this tech, it is also more than a little disconcerting. The ubiquity of camera phones and the emergence of tech like those Meta glasses is already pushing us to disconcerting (albeit interesting and in some cases very useful) places, but some of these cutting edge concepts worry me. WiFi seeing through walls also comes to mind…
- pedalpete 3y ago
  I'm surprised this isn't the top comment. I'm all for the benefits of this tech, and hadn't even thought about the airbnb style implication. People didn't like that Google Glass could always be filming, now we don't even have a physical camera. Rayban/Meta (I believe) have a sensor to detect that the wearer has not attempted to cover the light which shows that the camera is in use, but how will that work when every piece of glass is a camera.
- internetter 3y ago
  There are already microscopic cameras that can be bought for thousandths of the price
mintplant 3y ago
Sounds like this could work great for eye-tracking in VR/AR headset optics?
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I'm curious if we'll finally get videoconference technology that lets you look people in the eye.
  - calmworm 3y ago
    Or make eye-contact, rather? Interesting to consider. Though I imagine a camera behind a screen could do this, too.
KMnO4 3y ago
The article is poorly written, as it only discusses the camera component. Strangely, they chose stock images of holographic and optical displays, but didn’t mention that even once. The Zeiss site is a much better read: https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr... In summary: 1) ZEISS unveils holographic Smart Glass at CES 2024, both for displays/projection/filtering, but also another component which is a holographic camera 2) The holocam works by utilizing coupling, decoupling, and light guiding elements to redirect incident light to a concealed sensor, eliminating the need for visible cutouts or installation spaces in visible areas. 3) ZEISS doesn’t plan to be manufacturer, so other companies can use the tech
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >nd light guiding elements to redirect incident light to a concealed sensor, So you can't just stick on any existing window or pane of glass? That's good.
  - buffington 3y ago
    I don't think so. From the article: > The Holocam technology "uses holographic in-coupling, light guiding and de-coupling elements to redirect the incoming light of a transparent medium to a hidden image sensor." That suggests, at least to me, that you'll need something more than just a simple sheet of glass. There's probably some engineering required to allow light to be guided and redirected towards what sounds like a typical camera sensor.
    - p1dda 3y ago
      in-coupling and de-coupling of light, anyone care to explain?
      - buffington 3y ago
        I don't actually know what that specifically means in this case. If I were to guess, I'd assume that "de-coupling" means "splitting the spectrum into RGB." RGB, because it's easy to reproduce for human viewing, but you could do this with other spectrums as well. I imagine "in-coupling" refers to how they get the light to a sensor. I used to worked for a company that would use lasers to "build" mirrors inside of blocks of glass. They could tune those mirrors to reflect just red, or just blue, or green, or any combo. I can imagine using this sort of tech to build panels of glass that can route "de-coupled" RGB to travel spectrum specific sensors. Or, it might be possible that they're just capturing the full spectrum of light, but using microscopic etchings or surface treatments to bounce light down a layer of glass, somehow bouncing "pixels" of light down the pane of glass in a way that isn't lost while capturing other "pixels". I say "pixels", but what I mean is "a portion of the glass." If you think of the glass as the polished ends of fiber optic strands, all bundled together, each of them routed to a specific sensor pixel - that's sort of what I mean. If you can etch your prisms/combs/gates fine enough, you can have higher "pixel" density from your glass pane. Then again, they're the lens experts and could be doing something else entirely. I'm really just guessing.
lgkk 3y ago
Pretty cool and hella alarming lol. Next someone will tell me they have a way to “ssh” into the universe and get process details on every entity in it including every human and what’s happening. Kind of like in the matrix with The architect.
- i8comments 3y ago
  I guess the closest thing you can get to that -- ssh into somewhere and get details on every human -- is to ssh into the government's database on everyone remotely of interest, or even accidentaly connected, (in essence almost everyone), both made of computer and human agent collection and analysis.
schainks 3y ago
So... more mass surveillance tech coming from every window in every building?
- lawlessone 3y ago
  Nah , It would be easier and cheaper just to stick tiny regular cameras everywhere.
xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
It's a reverse light guide. We've been beam forming for a long time, it's unsurprising that the reverse is possible (imaging through a light pipe). The principal issue will be gathering enough energy. A well lit source like a bathroom mirror (mirror behind the light guide) could work pretty well I'd wager. If the light guide is too efficient then it will appear opaque, so there is a trade-off. I find "turns any window" pretty misleading. Unless I'm missing something this needs very special glass or at the very least a special coating/laminate. For folks worried about privacy, it will almost always be more convenient and cost-effective to install a tiny spy camera somewhere. Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins.
- ysofunny 3y ago
  > Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins. why not?
  - verall 3y ago
    It's not what they do, like they probably won't start selling lawnmowers either.
    - alexchamberlain 3y ago
      Whilst I kind of see where you and the sibling comment is coming from, Zeiss do make glass- they make precision glass. Making cheap glass would be quality diversification, which is not exactly unheard of.
      - verall 3y ago
        It sounds reasonable, but if they diversified quality, it would mean making precision glass and then also somewhat less precise glass. They will not start mass producing large panes of low margin glass. It's not what they're good at and it's not a lucrative market. Like Intel isn't going to start making jellybean parts. They could license their name to some existing glass company, but they still wouldn't really be the ones producing it, and I think Zeiss has avoided diluting their brand name like this so far.
mrandish 3y ago
After some searching I found a patent I think may be related to this https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020225109A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020225109A1/en because it uses the phrase "Holocam", is German and was filed by Audi (the press release mentions automotive applications as the primary initial use case). It's a translation from German which makes it a bit tougher to parse than the usual patent. The total lack of any deeper information beyond the bold yet vague claims in the press release is frustrating. The PR makes it sound like a miraculous breakthrough destined to change everything. The source release on the Zeiss site only adds two bits of info. > "The transparency of the holographic layer has only a minimal effect on the brilliance of the image reproduction. It is also possible to detect spectral components as additional information to complement the visible image. The resulting data provide insights into environmental contamination such as air pollution and UV exposure." However, experience shows that in reality bold+vague claims like this inevitably come with significant trade-offs and constraints which limit its applications (little things like cost, power, fidelity, size, speed, etc). This is especially true in early implementations of new tech. That said, it may still be both interesting and useful. Unfortunately, we have no way to even think about how it might be useful because Zeiss marketing has chosen to play 'hide the ball' instead of just releasing a technical explainer outlining relevant trade-offs, limitations, etc. If I was talking to someone from Zeiss my first questions would be about how much the additional components impact the optical characteristics of the glass, what the resolution of the resulting image data is, how large are the components needed at the edges and how far away can they be from the capture zone? Then, of course, how the output of the resulting imaging system maps into traditional camera/lens metrics like f-stops, aperture, imager size/density, gain, focal length, etc. Zeiss is an optics company after all.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mannykannot 3y ago
  Thanks for finding this. The paper mentioned in the Description section can be read here: https://www.academia.edu/52566311/_title_Volume_phase_holographic_gratings_and_their_potential_for_astronomical_applications_title_ https://www.academia.edu/52566311/_title_Volume_phase_hologr... My guess is that each of the items in patent diagram labeled 20 and 22 are gratings of this sort, perhaps with the fringes angled at 45 degrees. Some additional info may be gleaned from the one patent citing this one, invented by one of the co-inventors of the latter: https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102019206354A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102019206354A1/en
bcherny 3y ago
Are there any numbers on how many megapixels the camera is, and how many DPI the display is? (What are the upper bounds for these over time?) The demo looks greyscale, and super low res and low FPS.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >The demo looks greyscale, and super low res and low FPS. I think then intention is it just needs to be enough to know where the users face is and project a HUD at them.
m3kw9 3y ago
If you look at it where does it show your eye looking once captured?
teeray 3y ago
> This means that everything from the window in your car to the screen on your laptop to the glass on your front door can now possess an invisible image sensor. Retailers, marketers, and data brokers are salivating.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I can't wait until the windows in our homes plaster ads over everything every time we look outside. It'll sure be distracting when it's the windshields of our cars, but I do look forward to the legal drama when companies get sued for painting their "holographic" ads on top of the adspace other people already paid to pollute with their own advertisements.
  - from-nibly 3y ago
    how would an image sensor display ads?
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > Holographic 3D content permits more design, branding, guidance and information functions. For example, side and rear windows can be used for eye-catching Car2X communications. It is also possible to black out window glass or make projected text and images visible only from the inside or outside. Video content is also supported. (https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr...)
  - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
    I'm not sure where you live, but in many places there's strict city/county level ordinances restricting signs (Particularly lit up signs) and advertising. There's a reason people's backyards aren't littered with billboards. Anyone that's experienced a cracked windshield understands that this won't be going anywhere outside of some very niche and expensive cars.
    - 3y ago
LegitShady 3y ago
It honestly doesn't seem that useful to me.
iamthepieman 3y ago
They're specifically marketing to car manufacturers in the press release video. Which is unfortunate because I don't need more non-haptic buggy interfaces in my car. The technology itself is amazing even though the holo-cam appears to be just greyscale and rather blurry right now. The ability to embed the optics in/near (hard to tell from the marketing) the edge of the glass is awesome as you don't need a projector that is separate (by much) from the display surface.
wkat4242 3y ago
Yeah it sounds like a great option to place a camera invisibly in the middle top half of your screen so you can actually look a person in the eye when videoconferencing. No more weirdly looking down or to the side for everyone. I'm sure it can be used for creepiness as well but I see the benefits too.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - leadingthenet 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure they meant for the front cameras. The camera bumps are here to stay, I'm afraid.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    Quality is probably limited so this would be best for a front facing camera.
  - NavinF 3y ago
    I never understood bigger and more numerous camera bumps until I used optical zoom and took photos at night. Image quality with thick lenses is incomparably superior to that of thin lenses and 3 image sensors collect 3x as many photons as 1 so you don't have to hold the phone still for such a long time. Ideally the entire backside of my phone would be lenses
    - Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
      and your 1500€ phone still sucks compared to my 500€ DSLR, lol
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jamiek88 3y ago
wil421 3y ago
Years ago I was able to visit Zeiss in Oberkochen. They had a fantastic headquarters with a few older lithographs. I think a couple of the instruments were 80 millions dollars or so. There’s a facility across from the Autobahn that was so sensitive trucks going by would throw off their machines. They had to put padding on the autobahn to prevent it. This was after they put the foundation on some kind of suspension. My coworker said they hire the most PHDs in Europe.
- stronglikedan 3y ago
  Sounds like LIGO, but they're in the US. They had to put the AC unit for their entire facility on suspension because their instruments were so sensitive. And they ask people to not accelerate or decelerate so quickly when driving around the campus.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Feels like it would be easier to buy land not next to a highway :-)
  - wil421 3y ago
    You need to attract PHDs and account for logistics. If you want to attract top talent you need to be in a desirable place or be a desirable place with access to desirable places.
  - mannykannot 3y ago
    None of the PhDs are in Facilities Management.
tqi 3y ago
"Webcams that enable you to look anywhere on your screen." Minor aside, but does anyone actually care about this? Forever ago, I was told to try and look into the camera in order to project eye contact during video calls, but now that just seems like a cultural hangup that arose from people not being familiar with video calling. Now that it is more ubiquitous, I feel like we all have collectively agreed that the eye contact thing is unnecessary?
- toomim 3y ago
  It's not just cultural. We've evolved to recognize eye-contact. Newborn babies immediately know when you look at them. Eye contact with a dog communicates dominance. You've just acclimated to losing that signal during video chats. Bring it back, and you'll have a richer experience. More generally, we have evolved special neural hardware to recognize gaze, with a special case for when gaze is directed at our eyes. Gaze is important because it's a sign of where people are attending. And as Herb Simon said: "in the information age, attention is the scarce resource."
- hn8305823 3y ago
  No, and I'm absolutely not willing to give up the mechanical camera shutter I have on my laptop for that feature. They could add a mechanical shutter to the hidden camera in the frame but why do all of this. Edit: Should have said "mechanical lens cover" instead of "mechanical camera shutter"
  - asow92 3y ago
    Just so you know, in photography, "mechanical camera shutter" can mean something very different from what I think you mean.
    - heleninboodler 3y ago
      This is an odd, almost reverse nitpick. The word "shutter" is general-purpose. It's literally a thing that shuts the opening. There's one inside an SLR camera, as you point out. There's often one on a webcam. They are common on windows on houses.
from-nibly 3y ago
I'm just excited to have a cheapish webcam embedded in my monitor. That way I can look at people while I'm on zoom. That's it.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Glass surfaces can also generate energy. The microoptical layer in the window pane absorbs incident sunlight and transmits it in concentrated form to a solar cell. This combines the advantages of conventional windows – natural light and an unrestricted view – with the additional benefit of efficient energy production. This is pretty cool.
- mrexroad 3y ago
  Agree. Obviously a few orders of magnitude in cost reduction would be required... but this seem like it could have interesting potential for energy generation in high-rise buildings, which currently have near-zero solar footprint. With that said, the lack of any mention regarding efficiency makes this part of the press release seem like a bit of smoke and, erm, mirrors.
bouvin 3y ago
Looks pretty cool, though it is not quite Slow Glass [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days
thr0waway987 3y ago
The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.
_the_inflator 3y ago
Apple rejoices, I guess. This brings their vision of getting rid of the notch closer to reality.
1letterunixname 3y ago
Reads like press-release wank. So not a Lytro, but imagining the possibilities of reflection-based computed image reconstruction. They accomplished getting their brand out there without offering anything new. Check out their about us: > From time to time we also publish advertorials (paid-for editorial content) and sponsored content on the site. https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/about-us https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/about-us
biomcgary 3y ago
Given that Zeiss proposes this technology for vehicles, windows, etc., I'm curious about the effects of water droplets in direct contact with the surface changing the index of refraction locally (vs air).
nefrix 3y ago
Let the mass surveillance begin!
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  too late
AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
For the people kinda worried: this is a highly specialized piece of glass that is extremely complicated to manufacture at present and must, due to the laws of thermodynamics, not be 100% transparent. It's not going to allow surveillance through existing glass installations in any form, just possibly new ones if there's room for the support equipment and through the use of 4-5 digit piles of cash. Any camera glass like this will have at least a mild tint and will be used in specialty applications. It'll also have pretty horrible SNR, resolution, and low light performance. Currently the structural component of this tech is mainly used in extremely high end aerospace applications (various heads up display type systems) so it's unlikely you'll ever run across one of these within the next decade. Nasty remote sensing tech people can be worried about right now: RF surveillance from various combinations of mmWave, wall penetrating radar, and wifi interferometry. Add in the fact that your IPhone has mac randomization but every other device you own including your car's TPMS doesn't. Also Geiger mode lidar is fun, one company I worked for mapped the inside of a random person's house with it as a demo.
- sroussey 3y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but the example on the CES floor does not have an apparent tint.
  - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
    I assure you it is semi opaque. A one way mirror is a primitive example of this. You can make the reflection increasingly transparent but it will be tinted up until the point it doesn't reflect anything. It may not be noticeably visible to the human eye under most lighting conditions, though.
    - godelski 3y ago
      >> but the example on the CES floor does not have an __apparent__ tint. > I assure you it is semi opaque > It may not be __noticeably visible__ to the human eye under most lighting conditions, though. I'm not sure you two are disagreeing. Seems like you're just reinforcing their point. I mean if someone said glass is opaque and their evidence is that you can't see through glass and your evidence is to point at UV light... well... you'd be technically correct but you're talking from a different ballpark.
i8comments 3y ago
Is there on the market any device that should be able to detect this tech if it is used as hidden cams?
neilv 3y ago
Get legislation against all hidden cameras.
sroussey 3y ago
Is it just me, or does their car stuff look a lot like the BMW Neue Klasse stuff?
nickpinkston 3y ago
This video seems to show what they're talking about better than that article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ
xyproto 3y ago
Changing rooms will never be the same.
erikpukinskis 3y ago
I’ve said many times, eye contact will be the killer app of VR… … but it will be ironic if 2D beats the VR companies to it, using technology like this. What an utter failure on the part of Meta that would be. With such a huge head start and they still don’t sell eye contact (except on their Pro device? Maybe?)
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Looks cool. The unfortunate thing, is that, whenever an "exciting new camera tech" is announced, the image quality is often debatable. But even relatively poor image quality might be cool, if you had a camera built into your monitor, so you could do direct-eye-contact video calls.
justinl33 3y ago
Can some correct me in saying that this is equivalent to having a 20+ inch sized sensor? The focal length would be extraordinary
- regularfry 3y ago
  That's what's making me wonder about marketing it to car makers. What does it do if your entire windscreen is a lens?
raphman 3y ago
Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group did something similar (I guess) back in 2011: https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/uploads/publications/7/Wedge-optics-in-flat-panel-displays.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/uploads/publicati... https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/projects/the-wedge https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/projects/the-wedg...
emmelaich 3y ago
... Does not turn glass windows into cameras. From the headline I thought this might be a possibility. Requires Zeiss Multifunctional Smart Glass(tm)
olivermarks 3y ago
Would be good to have a formal notification on glass stating 'this window/screen/etc contains a camera that may broadcast your image'
jack_riminton 3y ago
Am I alone in thinking this is cool but not inherently useful? The only use case where this might be useful is in video calls to make ‘eye contact’ more realistic but I’m sure there are software fixes (altering pupils) In most cases such as the windscreen you can just have a camera on the frame. Why does it need to utilise the glass itself?
- Aeolun 3y ago
  > Why does it need to utilise the glass itself? I think you’ll find that for a lot of people, it looks cool/elegant/stylish is a deciding factor.
ericfrederich 3y ago
https://youtu.be/NORPeCcIXRQ?si=7uonp0AGn5dNdGti https://youtu.be/NORPeCcIXRQ?si=7uonp0AGn5dNdGti
tgbugs 3y ago
I'm super excited about whether something like this could be used to prevent bird strikes on windows. If anyone wants to grow the market for this technology there are likely square miles worth of glass that could have this installed to prevent birds from being killed.
sleepybrett 3y ago
So embedded micro light pipes? Cool idea. I wonder if it creates any kind of noticeable perturbation in the glass. Like if you embedded this in a window and were looking through a portion of the glass that contained these light pipes would you be able to notice them? Might be a problem for putting this type of glass in front of a display.
chernoby 3y ago
There is a video on youtube, camera resolution a bit poor quality but game changer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ
crazygringo 3y ago
I've read through all the comments here but I still don't have the slightest idea of how this works. I see some references to "light guides" and words like "coupling" but I don't know what those mean at all, and all of my googling is not helping to explain how light guides embedded in a thin, mostly transparent layer could possibly be used to project a hi-res holographic 3D light field out of a piece of glass. How big is each guide? What is it exactly -- what is it actually made of? How is it shaped? How are they arranged? How are they illuminated? How do you manufacture something like this? Can anyone ELI15 how this works?
- terminous 3y ago
  Don't think of it like a transparent camera. Think of the window as a giant external periscope lens, connected to the rest of the camera with such thin fiber optics that you can't notice.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Sure, but how do you build fiber optics like that? Especially so each "pixel" has to shoot out hundreds (?) of separate fibers to cover every possible angle to achieve the holographic effect? For just a 1MP display, we're talking like hundreds of millions of fibers? That fit in some thin transparent layer? How?
    - dclowd9901 3y ago
      I also am a bit over my head here but I’d guess the major innovation is around manufacturing glass in a way that optic channels are a natural part of the glass’ characteristics as it’s developed. We’re probably talking fiber optics at a molecular level.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  There are nanoscale features in the glass that scatter or reflect the incoming light in an engineered way to small camera sensors in the frame. It's basically something like the Microsoft Halolens in reverse.
SheilaStamper 3y ago
[dead]

585 points by toss1 3y ago

Comfy-Tinwork 3y ago

Wonder how long intelligence agencies have had this.

throwup238 3y ago
One comes standard with every shower door.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
forward1 3y ago
Implants which modulate and reflect incoming radio signals back to the radar device, especially powered by the radio wave itself, is nothing new in clandestine surveillance.
i8comments 3y ago
They'd probably put it in lightbulbs (to get a long lasting power source and good viewing angle).
- 93po 3y ago
  They'd probably pay a contractor $60 million to develop it for the military and not actually wind up with anything of use

sheepscreek 3y ago

This is beyond even science fiction. I could have never imagined something like this was even possible - I still can’t. Is there a demo of this tech in action?

a2l 3y ago
Found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ
- dazhbog 3y ago
  holy shit, the glass camera in action.. Scary
- adolph 3y ago
  Rough translation of video transcript (YT transcript translated by deepl.com): Lenses. This year's theme is now holograms and it's pretty funny that this is is called a holocam, and it's pretty funny. If you look at it right now, if you look at the spring right here. you can see a little bit of blue you can see a little bit of blue, which is actually what is it? it's actually acting as a camera, so Now, if you listen to the explanation what we call holography. is that it's now reflecting light, so we can gather that light and you can collect that light and act like a camera like a camera, so for example, you can now what? the meat. it can recognize the blue color and only recognize the blue part. Jace's holocam. It's quite interesting.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  great find, this is much better than the article

pushcx 3y ago

I spent a few minutes looking for more info, doesn't seem that Zeiss has published anything but a press release yet: https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr...

junon 3y ago
https://www.zeiss.com/oem-solutions/products-solutions/multifunctional-smart-glass.html https://www.zeiss.com/oem-solutions/products-solutions/multi...
fourteenfour 3y ago
Here's their CES page with a video: https://exhibitors.ces.tech/8_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?exhid=0014V000042F4rCQAS https://exhibitors.ces.tech/8_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details....
- airstrike 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing. More of an animation than a proper video
  - stronglikedan 3y ago
    A video of an animation is still a video.
    - airstrike 3y ago
      Hence why I said "proper" video
  - fourteenfour 3y ago
    For sure, was disappointed with the original article for only linking generic keywords back to their own site. At least the CES one is from the horse's mouth.
  - ylere 3y ago

mikewarot 3y ago

Having played with light fields and photography, I have questions. There has to be an imaging sensor somewhere. Where is it? I strongly suspect most of this "magic" will condense out of this cloud into a puddle of marketing sponsored bovine excrement.

notaustinpowers 3y ago
> The Holocam technology "uses holographic in-coupling, light guiding and de-coupling elements to redirect the incoming light of a transparent medium to a hidden image sensor." It looks like it still requires a sensor, it can just be hidden in the frame of the glass.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  Sure it has a sensor, it's not magic. But OTOH if it can capture the POV of a real line of eye contact with another image projected _through_ the camera, the effects are transformative, it doesn't matter whether ultimately there is a sensor somewhere or not

beginning_end 3y ago

That was a truly horrible web-page. Does anyone have a link to the actual technology?

aftbit 3y ago

Do a search on "non line of sight imaging" (aka NLOS). Here's just one public paper.[1] If this is what is being published, what do you think the intelligence agencies have? 1: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2024468118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2024468118

haswell 3y ago

> Given the current fear around hidden cameras in Airbnbs, the idea of every single window (or even shower door) in a rental property being able to spy on you is a little disconcerting. While there are some really interesting potential applications for this tech, it is also more than a little disconcerting. The ubiquity of camera phones and the emergence of tech like those Meta glasses is already pushing us to disconcerting (albeit interesting and in some cases very useful) places, but some of these cutting edge concepts worry me. WiFi seeing through walls also comes to mind…

pedalpete 3y ago
I'm surprised this isn't the top comment. I'm all for the benefits of this tech, and hadn't even thought about the airbnb style implication. People didn't like that Google Glass could always be filming, now we don't even have a physical camera. Rayban/Meta (I believe) have a sensor to detect that the wearer has not attempted to cover the light which shows that the camera is in use, but how will that work when every piece of glass is a camera.
internetter 3y ago
There are already microscopic cameras that can be bought for thousandths of the price

mintplant 3y ago

Sounds like this could work great for eye-tracking in VR/AR headset optics?

saalweachter 3y ago
I'm curious if we'll finally get videoconference technology that lets you look people in the eye.
- calmworm 3y ago
  Or make eye-contact, rather? Interesting to consider. Though I imagine a camera behind a screen could do this, too.

KMnO4 3y ago

The article is poorly written, as it only discusses the camera component. Strangely, they chose stock images of holographic and optical displays, but didn’t mention that even once. The Zeiss site is a much better read: https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr... In summary: 1) ZEISS unveils holographic Smart Glass at CES 2024, both for displays/projection/filtering, but also another component which is a holographic camera 2) The holocam works by utilizing coupling, decoupling, and light guiding elements to redirect incident light to a concealed sensor, eliminating the need for visible cutouts or installation spaces in visible areas. 3) ZEISS doesn’t plan to be manufacturer, so other companies can use the tech

lawlessone 3y ago
>nd light guiding elements to redirect incident light to a concealed sensor, So you can't just stick on any existing window or pane of glass? That's good.
- buffington 3y ago
  I don't think so. From the article: > The Holocam technology "uses holographic in-coupling, light guiding and de-coupling elements to redirect the incoming light of a transparent medium to a hidden image sensor." That suggests, at least to me, that you'll need something more than just a simple sheet of glass. There's probably some engineering required to allow light to be guided and redirected towards what sounds like a typical camera sensor.
  - p1dda 3y ago
    in-coupling and de-coupling of light, anyone care to explain?
    - buffington 3y ago
      I don't actually know what that specifically means in this case. If I were to guess, I'd assume that "de-coupling" means "splitting the spectrum into RGB." RGB, because it's easy to reproduce for human viewing, but you could do this with other spectrums as well. I imagine "in-coupling" refers to how they get the light to a sensor. I used to worked for a company that would use lasers to "build" mirrors inside of blocks of glass. They could tune those mirrors to reflect just red, or just blue, or green, or any combo. I can imagine using this sort of tech to build panels of glass that can route "de-coupled" RGB to travel spectrum specific sensors. Or, it might be possible that they're just capturing the full spectrum of light, but using microscopic etchings or surface treatments to bounce light down a layer of glass, somehow bouncing "pixels" of light down the pane of glass in a way that isn't lost while capturing other "pixels". I say "pixels", but what I mean is "a portion of the glass." If you think of the glass as the polished ends of fiber optic strands, all bundled together, each of them routed to a specific sensor pixel - that's sort of what I mean. If you can etch your prisms/combs/gates fine enough, you can have higher "pixel" density from your glass pane. Then again, they're the lens experts and could be doing something else entirely. I'm really just guessing.

lgkk 3y ago

Pretty cool and hella alarming lol. Next someone will tell me they have a way to “ssh” into the universe and get process details on every entity in it including every human and what’s happening. Kind of like in the matrix with The architect.

i8comments 3y ago
I guess the closest thing you can get to that -- ssh into somewhere and get details on every human -- is to ssh into the government's database on everyone remotely of interest, or even accidentaly connected, (in essence almost everyone), both made of computer and human agent collection and analysis.

schainks 3y ago

So... more mass surveillance tech coming from every window in every building?

lawlessone 3y ago
Nah , It would be easier and cheaper just to stick tiny regular cameras everywhere.

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago

It's a reverse light guide. We've been beam forming for a long time, it's unsurprising that the reverse is possible (imaging through a light pipe). The principal issue will be gathering enough energy. A well lit source like a bathroom mirror (mirror behind the light guide) could work pretty well I'd wager. If the light guide is too efficient then it will appear opaque, so there is a trade-off. I find "turns any window" pretty misleading. Unless I'm missing something this needs very special glass or at the very least a special coating/laminate. For folks worried about privacy, it will almost always be more convenient and cost-effective to install a tiny spy camera somewhere. Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins.

ysofunny 3y ago
> Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins. why not?
- verall 3y ago
  It's not what they do, like they probably won't start selling lawnmowers either.
  - alexchamberlain 3y ago
    Whilst I kind of see where you and the sibling comment is coming from, Zeiss do make glass- they make precision glass. Making cheap glass would be quality diversification, which is not exactly unheard of.
    - verall 3y ago
      It sounds reasonable, but if they diversified quality, it would mean making precision glass and then also somewhat less precise glass. They will not start mass producing large panes of low margin glass. It's not what they're good at and it's not a lucrative market. Like Intel isn't going to start making jellybean parts. They could license their name to some existing glass company, but they still wouldn't really be the ones producing it, and I think Zeiss has avoided diluting their brand name like this so far.

mrandish 3y ago

After some searching I found a patent I think may be related to this https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020225109A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020225109A1/en because it uses the phrase "Holocam", is German and was filed by Audi (the press release mentions automotive applications as the primary initial use case). It's a translation from German which makes it a bit tougher to parse than the usual patent. The total lack of any deeper information beyond the bold yet vague claims in the press release is frustrating. The PR makes it sound like a miraculous breakthrough destined to change everything. The source release on the Zeiss site only adds two bits of info. > "The transparency of the holographic layer has only a minimal effect on the brilliance of the image reproduction. It is also possible to detect spectral components as additional information to complement the visible image. The resulting data provide insights into environmental contamination such as air pollution and UV exposure." However, experience shows that in reality bold+vague claims like this inevitably come with significant trade-offs and constraints which limit its applications (little things like cost, power, fidelity, size, speed, etc). This is especially true in early implementations of new tech. That said, it may still be both interesting and useful. Unfortunately, we have no way to even think about how it might be useful because Zeiss marketing has chosen to play 'hide the ball' instead of just releasing a technical explainer outlining relevant trade-offs, limitations, etc. If I was talking to someone from Zeiss my first questions would be about how much the additional components impact the optical characteristics of the glass, what the resolution of the resulting image data is, how large are the components needed at the edges and how far away can they be from the capture zone? Then, of course, how the output of the resulting imaging system maps into traditional camera/lens metrics like f-stops, aperture, imager size/density, gain, focal length, etc. Zeiss is an optics company after all.

deleted 3y ago
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mannykannot 3y ago
Thanks for finding this. The paper mentioned in the Description section can be read here: https://www.academia.edu/52566311/_title_Volume_phase_holographic_gratings_and_their_potential_for_astronomical_applications_title_ https://www.academia.edu/52566311/_title_Volume_phase_hologr... My guess is that each of the items in patent diagram labeled 20 and 22 are gratings of this sort, perhaps with the fringes angled at 45 degrees. Some additional info may be gleaned from the one patent citing this one, invented by one of the co-inventors of the latter: https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102019206354A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/DE102019206354A1/en

bcherny 3y ago

Are there any numbers on how many megapixels the camera is, and how many DPI the display is? (What are the upper bounds for these over time?) The demo looks greyscale, and super low res and low FPS.

lawlessone 3y ago
>The demo looks greyscale, and super low res and low FPS. I think then intention is it just needs to be enough to know where the users face is and project a HUD at them.

m3kw9 3y ago

If you look at it where does it show your eye looking once captured?

teeray 3y ago

> This means that everything from the window in your car to the screen on your laptop to the glass on your front door can now possess an invisible image sensor. Retailers, marketers, and data brokers are salivating.

autoexec 3y ago
I can't wait until the windows in our homes plaster ads over everything every time we look outside. It'll sure be distracting when it's the windshields of our cars, but I do look forward to the legal drama when companies get sued for painting their "holographic" ads on top of the adspace other people already paid to pollute with their own advertisements.
- from-nibly 3y ago
  how would an image sensor display ads?
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > Holographic 3D content permits more design, branding, guidance and information functions. For example, side and rear windows can be used for eye-catching Car2X communications. It is also possible to black out window glass or make projected text and images visible only from the inside or outside. Video content is also supported. (https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsroom/press-releases/2023/microoptics-ces.html https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en/about-zeiss/present/newsr...)
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  I'm not sure where you live, but in many places there's strict city/county level ordinances restricting signs (Particularly lit up signs) and advertising. There's a reason people's backyards aren't littered with billboards. Anyone that's experienced a cracked windshield understands that this won't be going anywhere outside of some very niche and expensive cars.
  - 3y ago

LegitShady 3y ago

It honestly doesn't seem that useful to me.

iamthepieman 3y ago

They're specifically marketing to car manufacturers in the press release video. Which is unfortunate because I don't need more non-haptic buggy interfaces in my car. The technology itself is amazing even though the holo-cam appears to be just greyscale and rather blurry right now. The ability to embed the optics in/near (hard to tell from the marketing) the edge of the glass is awesome as you don't need a projector that is separate (by much) from the display surface.

wkat4242 3y ago

Yeah it sounds like a great option to place a camera invisibly in the middle top half of your screen so you can actually look a person in the eye when videoconferencing. No more weirdly looking down or to the side for everyone. I'm sure it can be used for creepiness as well but I see the benefits too.

YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
[flagged]
- leadingthenet 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure they meant for the front cameras. The camera bumps are here to stay, I'm afraid.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Quality is probably limited so this would be best for a front facing camera.
- NavinF 3y ago
  I never understood bigger and more numerous camera bumps until I used optical zoom and took photos at night. Image quality with thick lenses is incomparably superior to that of thin lenses and 3 image sensors collect 3x as many photons as 1 so you don't have to hold the phone still for such a long time. Ideally the entire backside of my phone would be lenses
  - Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
    and your 1500€ phone still sucks compared to my 500€ DSLR, lol
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jamiek88 3y ago

wil421 3y ago

Years ago I was able to visit Zeiss in Oberkochen. They had a fantastic headquarters with a few older lithographs. I think a couple of the instruments were 80 millions dollars or so. There’s a facility across from the Autobahn that was so sensitive trucks going by would throw off their machines. They had to put padding on the autobahn to prevent it. This was after they put the foundation on some kind of suspension. My coworker said they hire the most PHDs in Europe.

stronglikedan 3y ago
Sounds like LIGO, but they're in the US. They had to put the AC unit for their entire facility on suspension because their instruments were so sensitive. And they ask people to not accelerate or decelerate so quickly when driving around the campus.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
Feels like it would be easier to buy land not next to a highway :-)
- wil421 3y ago
  You need to attract PHDs and account for logistics. If you want to attract top talent you need to be in a desirable place or be a desirable place with access to desirable places.
- mannykannot 3y ago
  None of the PhDs are in Facilities Management.

tqi 3y ago

"Webcams that enable you to look anywhere on your screen." Minor aside, but does anyone actually care about this? Forever ago, I was told to try and look into the camera in order to project eye contact during video calls, but now that just seems like a cultural hangup that arose from people not being familiar with video calling. Now that it is more ubiquitous, I feel like we all have collectively agreed that the eye contact thing is unnecessary?

toomim 3y ago
It's not just cultural. We've evolved to recognize eye-contact. Newborn babies immediately know when you look at them. Eye contact with a dog communicates dominance. You've just acclimated to losing that signal during video chats. Bring it back, and you'll have a richer experience. More generally, we have evolved special neural hardware to recognize gaze, with a special case for when gaze is directed at our eyes. Gaze is important because it's a sign of where people are attending. And as Herb Simon said: "in the information age, attention is the scarce resource."
hn8305823 3y ago
No, and I'm absolutely not willing to give up the mechanical camera shutter I have on my laptop for that feature. They could add a mechanical shutter to the hidden camera in the frame but why do all of this. Edit: Should have said "mechanical lens cover" instead of "mechanical camera shutter"
- asow92 3y ago
  Just so you know, in photography, "mechanical camera shutter" can mean something very different from what I think you mean.
  - heleninboodler 3y ago
    This is an odd, almost reverse nitpick. The word "shutter" is general-purpose. It's literally a thing that shuts the opening. There's one inside an SLR camera, as you point out. There's often one on a webcam. They are common on windows on houses.

from-nibly 3y ago

I'm just excited to have a cheapish webcam embedded in my monitor. That way I can look at people while I'm on zoom. That's it.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Glass surfaces can also generate energy. The microoptical layer in the window pane absorbs incident sunlight and transmits it in concentrated form to a solar cell. This combines the advantages of conventional windows – natural light and an unrestricted view – with the additional benefit of efficient energy production. This is pretty cool.

mrexroad 3y ago
Agree. Obviously a few orders of magnitude in cost reduction would be required... but this seem like it could have interesting potential for energy generation in high-rise buildings, which currently have near-zero solar footprint. With that said, the lack of any mention regarding efficiency makes this part of the press release seem like a bit of smoke and, erm, mirrors.

bouvin 3y ago

Looks pretty cool, though it is not quite Slow Glass [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days

thr0waway987 3y ago

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.

_the_inflator 3y ago

Apple rejoices, I guess. This brings their vision of getting rid of the notch closer to reality.

1letterunixname 3y ago

Reads like press-release wank. So not a Lytro, but imagining the possibilities of reflection-based computed image reconstruction. They accomplished getting their brand out there without offering anything new. Check out their about us: > From time to time we also publish advertorials (paid-for editorial content) and sponsored content on the site. https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/about-us https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/about-us

biomcgary 3y ago

Given that Zeiss proposes this technology for vehicles, windows, etc., I'm curious about the effects of water droplets in direct contact with the surface changing the index of refraction locally (vs air).

nefrix 3y ago

Let the mass surveillance begin!

sumtechguy 3y ago
too late

AnarchismIsCool 3y ago

For the people kinda worried: this is a highly specialized piece of glass that is extremely complicated to manufacture at present and must, due to the laws of thermodynamics, not be 100% transparent. It's not going to allow surveillance through existing glass installations in any form, just possibly new ones if there's room for the support equipment and through the use of 4-5 digit piles of cash. Any camera glass like this will have at least a mild tint and will be used in specialty applications. It'll also have pretty horrible SNR, resolution, and low light performance. Currently the structural component of this tech is mainly used in extremely high end aerospace applications (various heads up display type systems) so it's unlikely you'll ever run across one of these within the next decade. Nasty remote sensing tech people can be worried about right now: RF surveillance from various combinations of mmWave, wall penetrating radar, and wifi interferometry. Add in the fact that your IPhone has mac randomization but every other device you own including your car's TPMS doesn't. Also Geiger mode lidar is fun, one company I worked for mapped the inside of a random person's house with it as a demo.

sroussey 3y ago
I agree with everything you said, but the example on the CES floor does not have an apparent tint.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  I assure you it is semi opaque. A one way mirror is a primitive example of this. You can make the reflection increasingly transparent but it will be tinted up until the point it doesn't reflect anything. It may not be noticeably visible to the human eye under most lighting conditions, though.
  - godelski 3y ago
    >> but the example on the CES floor does not have an __apparent__ tint. > I assure you it is semi opaque > It may not be __noticeably visible__ to the human eye under most lighting conditions, though. I'm not sure you two are disagreeing. Seems like you're just reinforcing their point. I mean if someone said glass is opaque and their evidence is that you can't see through glass and your evidence is to point at UV light... well... you'd be technically correct but you're talking from a different ballpark.

i8comments 3y ago

Is there on the market any device that should be able to detect this tech if it is used as hidden cams?

neilv 3y ago

Get legislation against all hidden cameras.

sroussey 3y ago

Is it just me, or does their car stuff look a lot like the BMW Neue Klasse stuff?

nickpinkston 3y ago

This video seems to show what they're talking about better than that article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ

xyproto 3y ago

Changing rooms will never be the same.

erikpukinskis 3y ago

I’ve said many times, eye contact will be the killer app of VR… … but it will be ironic if 2D beats the VR companies to it, using technology like this. What an utter failure on the part of Meta that would be. With such a huge head start and they still don’t sell eye contact (except on their Pro device? Maybe?)

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Looks cool. The unfortunate thing, is that, whenever an "exciting new camera tech" is announced, the image quality is often debatable. But even relatively poor image quality might be cool, if you had a camera built into your monitor, so you could do direct-eye-contact video calls.

justinl33 3y ago

Can some correct me in saying that this is equivalent to having a 20+ inch sized sensor? The focal length would be extraordinary

regularfry 3y ago
That's what's making me wonder about marketing it to car makers. What does it do if your entire windscreen is a lens?

raphman 3y ago

Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group did something similar (I guess) back in 2011: https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/uploads/publications/7/Wedge-optics-in-flat-panel-displays.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/uploads/publicati... https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/projects/the-wedge https://www.microsoft.com/applied-sciences/projects/the-wedg...

emmelaich 3y ago

... Does not turn glass windows into cameras. From the headline I thought this might be a possibility. Requires Zeiss Multifunctional Smart Glass(tm)

olivermarks 3y ago

Would be good to have a formal notification on glass stating 'this window/screen/etc contains a camera that may broadcast your image'

jack_riminton 3y ago

Am I alone in thinking this is cool but not inherently useful? The only use case where this might be useful is in video calls to make ‘eye contact’ more realistic but I’m sure there are software fixes (altering pupils) In most cases such as the windscreen you can just have a camera on the frame. Why does it need to utilise the glass itself?

Aeolun 3y ago
> Why does it need to utilise the glass itself? I think you’ll find that for a lot of people, it looks cool/elegant/stylish is a deciding factor.

ericfrederich 3y ago

https://youtu.be/NORPeCcIXRQ?si=7uonp0AGn5dNdGti https://youtu.be/NORPeCcIXRQ?si=7uonp0AGn5dNdGti

tgbugs 3y ago

I'm super excited about whether something like this could be used to prevent bird strikes on windows. If anyone wants to grow the market for this technology there are likely square miles worth of glass that could have this installed to prevent birds from being killed.

sleepybrett 3y ago

So embedded micro light pipes? Cool idea. I wonder if it creates any kind of noticeable perturbation in the glass. Like if you embedded this in a window and were looking through a portion of the glass that contained these light pipes would you be able to notice them? Might be a problem for putting this type of glass in front of a display.

chernoby 3y ago

There is a video on youtube, camera resolution a bit poor quality but game changer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ

crazygringo 3y ago

I've read through all the comments here but I still don't have the slightest idea of how this works. I see some references to "light guides" and words like "coupling" but I don't know what those mean at all, and all of my googling is not helping to explain how light guides embedded in a thin, mostly transparent layer could possibly be used to project a hi-res holographic 3D light field out of a piece of glass. How big is each guide? What is it exactly -- what is it actually made of? How is it shaped? How are they arranged? How are they illuminated? How do you manufacture something like this? Can anyone ELI15 how this works?

terminous 3y ago
Don't think of it like a transparent camera. Think of the window as a giant external periscope lens, connected to the rest of the camera with such thin fiber optics that you can't notice.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Sure, but how do you build fiber optics like that? Especially so each "pixel" has to shoot out hundreds (?) of separate fibers to cover every possible angle to achieve the holographic effect? For just a 1MP display, we're talking like hundreds of millions of fibers? That fit in some thin transparent layer? How?
  - dclowd9901 3y ago
    I also am a bit over my head here but I’d guess the major innovation is around manufacturing glass in a way that optic channels are a natural part of the glass’ characteristics as it’s developed. We’re probably talking fiber optics at a molecular level.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
There are nanoscale features in the glass that scatter or reflect the incoming light in an engineered way to small camera sensors in the frame. It's basically something like the Microsoft Halolens in reverse.

SheilaStamper 3y ago

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