Thesis Project Hologram Displays Movement in Real Time

Reddit user, Evlmnkey, shared their bachelor's degree project on the site, and it's an impressive live hologram display. 

Comments such as "This is better than a lot of the "professional" hologram displays I've seen," are peppering the comments section beneath the post, and it's easy to see why. 

The use of 3D displays and holograms is growing in the industry, especially with the use of special glasses. Images are typically projected onto a specific point, and voilà, you see a floating 3D hologram in front of you. 

There is also a growing number of OLED, transparent TVs burgeoning in the sector, with companies such as China's TLC jumping on that bandwagon early on. 

But as bachelor thesis projects go, this is an impressive one. 

How the live hologram works

Evlmnkey's, as the Reddit user's account is called, project combines motion capture and a volumetric display that creates a real volumetric 3D closed-circuit TV system. 

The display is a regular Adafruit single-sided LED matrix powered by an ESP32, mounted on a rotor, and that uses slip rings to power it. WiFi feeds data into the ESP, and the PC grabs the moving image and sends it through uncompressed frames. There's mention of a Kinect library, which most likely captures the 3D motion. 

None of this came easy to the creator, who mentioned it took them "months trying not to despair and only look at the one specific problem currently ahead." Indeed, focusing on one thing at a time comes in handy in overwhelming moments such as these. 

It took the creator six weeks to get a "stable, still, image onto the display with (their) ESP32." After a month and a half, they had a solid color that didn't flicker. Then came the data transmission, where they hooked up the ESP32 with the Display and the computer. Then they worked on sending one of those 30 frames 30 times within one second. 

In their own words, the creator stated "So yeah: just methodical work from the ground up, just starting to solve some problems, then some more, then run away from some (try to do it elegantly!), solve some more and eventually... yeah, your deadline will arrive before there are no more problems. But you get the point!" 

Clearly, persistence is key. 

It goes to show how the world of 3D, OLED, holograms, and more is continually growing. And just imagine how cool it would be to have a TV that projects live holograms are you view scenes from the comfort of your sofa.

This is my take at a 'hologram' for my bachelors. Far from perfect but I hope it being true 3D and live-captured sets it apart. AMA if you want :) from r/arduino