Star Trek and Star Wars, and the men behind the franchises, Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas are responsible for some of the technology we use every day and their imagination has inspired a generation of inventors, scientist and even Sci-fi fans that like to create stuff in their shed.
One company that was inspired by the Technology we see in Star Trek has created what essentially is, the worlds first Holodeck. A room you can use and interact with, with hyper realistic graphics creating real world like images both on screen and Volumetric Holograms.
The first time we see the Holodeck in Star Trek is in the very first episode of the Next Generation, 'Encounter as Farpoint', One of the lead protagonist, Riker, goes to the holodeck in search of Crew mate Data, He finds what appears to be a Forrest with trees, bushes, running water and even weather appropriate to the environment.
How the fictional holodeck works is described several times during the 7 seasons and following films, the holodeck has realistic images on the walls to fool your depth perception and Volumetric holograms are projected into the room surrounded by force fields to give them the appearance of having mass, with smells and weather created too, to fool all your senses.
There have been many attempts to create this technology on the road to have a fully functional holodeck. It started with flat images that used multi layer images that made it appear 3D when you moved it, they were all the range in the 70's 80's and 90's, starting with a rainbow sticker on VHS tapes to full works of art. My better half has hologram pictures on the wall from the 90's of Marilyn Monroe, and they freak me out each time I see them.
Then a company called Burton Inc. in Japan used a system of pulsing, overlapping lasers to create a plasma based hologram. The downside to this is that I can see, is you could not walk around the plasma based hologram without blocking the lasers line of sight, and the larger the hologram is the hotter it will become making it impossible to touch. This is why the lasers pulse once every femtosecond, that's once every 1000 trillionth of a second. The company is now looking into implementing this tech for consumer use, and have been since late 2014.
Another company has also attempted to create volumetric holograms. This time succeeding in full colour and high quality but with a few problems and restrictions. VoxieBox uses a very simple system of an image projector and a vibrating base to make the image 'appear' 3D. Add the fact its in a clear box and you can't interact with the images directly. This is more misdirection than holographic.
To get to the next step of Virtual reality, we now have available VR headsets from as little as £10 that you slide your phone in or a fully fledged headset around £600. Some game developers are starting to design their games with VR in mind, however. Its just another misdirection of what 3D is. It just fools you to think you are in that environment and you still need a lot of computer power to run the game engine....
So if we were to create a holodeck. We need to start with the realistic images on the walls.
Most computers and consoles have a Graphics Processor, or GPU, if that be integrated or via an expansion card. Game developers haven't changed how a game is built since the inception of 3D games. I am talking about Polygons, polygons are flat planes that make up an image. This is most notable in minecraft. Rather than having rounded surfaces, they use flat planes to make up the character and environment. If you take a look at a more modern game like Divinity 2, it looks very realistic but still uses polygons, this is why you need a lot of graphical processing power to play them. If you have one polygon plane, it uses some processing power. If you have 2. that power usage doubles. So the more polygon planes you have, the more power needed. But there is a company that can create images, environments and games that are hyper realistic but only uses a fraction of the power.
Euclidean Unlimited from Australia, changed things up by thinking 'outside the box' to how a game can be developed, but without using polygons. Euclideon's Unlimited Detail engine is exactly that. Unlimited detail and unlimited power. How? In most modern games, polygons at 4k resolution are the size of a pixel, and in some instances, smaller. So why then are we still using polygons for 3D models? They take up a ton of power and are limited to the amount of detail you can put into it with current and near future technology. Euclideon got around this problem by using something called 'Point Cloud Data'. Instead of using planes of polygons, they used an organised cloud of floating atoms to create a 3D model. So one atom uses a tiny, tiny, tiny (I can't say tiny enough) amount of processing power, add another atom, you're still using the same amount of power, so it wouldn't matter if you were using a million, a billion, a trillion or a quadrillion atoms, the processing power wouldn't increase all that much, but still a fraction of power to that of a modern game.
In 2010 they released a video showing off this new tech, most people thought it was a scam, but it wasn't. The resolution was a million times higher to that of games available in 2010, now in 2017. that number is now a trillion times more to that of today's games, and can now create hyper realistic 3D images indistinguishable to the actual thing.
(this is a digitally rendered hyper realistic image a million times more resolution than the most advanced games)
They have an environment laser scanner (called Solid Scan) that can scan anything and any environment. The problem being is. There is too much data for GPUs to process using the polygon system, but with the PCD system, it don't matter how much detail is recorded, the power usage to display the copied image of the real world would remain the same. This system can create a digital copy of an environment in a day which would take game developers months to create. Hanse the hyper realistic 3D images giving objects real geometry and real shape instead of using flat textured planes of polygons.
How do they create a true volumetric hologram? Rather than having a bulky headset to create the feel of a 3D world. Euclideon just use a simple set of glasses. Similar to what you use for a 3D TV.
Combine that with the PSD technology, each object that they create appears to hold its position in mid air inside their version of a holodeck.
Combining the realistic images on the walls and a projector create images that literally jump out of the wall/screen.
They go another step further by fooling your depth perception by making the atoms appear further away than they actually are. In the Holoverse (a room for the public to use with several holodeck's to use) one of the programs has a hole in the floor. If you jump into it, everything will move upwards in real time. Images and holograms together. To make you feel as thou you are falling. You can crouch down into water and see fish swimming up to you . Watch snowflakes fall in front of you and through your hand.
With research currently going into force field technology, which I will discuss in a future post, the implications of this holodeck technology can be limitless. And who knows, when we decide to explore the stars when the technology has caught up. Star ships could have a holodeck just like the crew of the enterprise.
Maybe in the future, when we choose a house to buy, we could be looking for houses that come complete with a holodeck.
The technology can be used for training military, doctors, teach children in schools in a safe environment. And obviously, make gaming a whole lot better, immersive and enjoyable.
Holodeck's are, what I believe, the next step in virtual reality, and game developers are only just starting to recognise the significance of what Euclideon have created.
For more information go and visit their site. http://www.euclideon.com/
They have other holographic tech available that you can actually buy (if you have the $$$). Even if you just want a chat with them, they are very friendly and informative.
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Thanks for reading
@TechMojo
Images...
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/05/euclideon-promised-to-revolutionise-computer-graphics-now-theyre-making-holograms/
http://www.startrek.com/article/poll-says-tng-used-the-holodeck-best
https://giphy.com/gifs/marilyn-monroe-idol-happy-birthday-7yIj6AcVWjX0I
https://gizmodo.com/you-can-feel-these-plasma-holograms-made-with-femtoseco-1715036802
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xygqgk/nows-your-chance-to-make-a-home-hologram
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/10/google-cardboard-reaches-15-million-installs/
http://www.euclideon.com/holoverse/
http://bestanimationbooks.com/animation/the-polygon
http://meixnerimaging.com/solidscan/
https://www.holoverse.com.au/
https://www.curbed.com/2017/8/28/16214068/hologram-table-buy-euclideon-architecture