HNNewShowAskJobs
Built with Tanstack Start
Multivox: Volumetric Display(github.com)
172 points by jk_tech 5 hours ago | 21 comments
  • JKCalhoun5 hours ago

    In case you miss it, a video of the thing in operation is linked: https://youtu.be/pcAEqbYwixU

    Reminds me that there are limitations to volumetric displays—namely that, since you have no idea where the viewer is located, there is no backface culling you can perform. So it seems to work best for "cutaway" views.

    I'd like to see one in person. Might be "magical" — the video only kind of hints at this.

    • lawlessonean hour ago |parent

      I can see it making a great "radar" peripheral for 3d space games, think Elite Dangerous or No Mans Sky that both have one in their cockpits.

  • bananananna36542 hours ago

    This one uses a projector on oscillating rubber bands so that you can reach in and touch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwKOXxX9Ck

  • thesz4 hours ago

    These displays use rotating mechanisms.

    This ones does not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrfBjRp61iY

    Volumetric display in the video above uses static projector whose pixels light up etchings inside solid glass.

    • probablycorey4 hours ago |parent

      The same person built both of these.

    • ge963 hours ago |parent

      feel like I saw this in a hackaday, at least remember hearing the podcast about projecting all the rays at all intersections, it was green though maybe I'm thinking of something else

      oh wow yeah I've seen a lot of this channel's work before the lego display, the CV fiber optic bundle display

  • btbuildeman hour ago

    Before I watched the video, my brain ran ahead and I imagined it would be one of those led "fans", except also rotating around it's base. It might be harder to sync the two rotations, but you'd have much less mass in motion that way.

    The solid state ones are cool! The real mystery there is how the pixel volume was manufactured -- it doesn't seem like something easily DIY'd

    • raphman23 minutes ago |parent

      There are companies that laser-'etch' 3D images into glass. I guess it's not that hard to find one that accepts a list of xyz coordinates.

  • limbicsystem2 hours ago

    This guy's entire output is incredible (from alien tellitubbies onwards). Go moose! https://mastodon.social/@ancientjames

  • msuniverse2026an hour ago

    I wonder if you could have a vibrating chladni plate with sand on it and you match when the sand should jump with the light that's meant to be at that spot. You get the interruption of light looking like a mid-air pixel and then when it isn't needed it drops back down allowing light to pass through. Kind of like one of those mist-screens except there isn't mist where you don't need it.

  • liftyan hour ago

    Would be great having one of these hooked up to an LLM agent so it can be somehow “embodied”. Like a Siri + volumetric display + speaker. Waiting for a company to build this.

  • iberator2 hours ago

    DOES IT RUN DOOM?! seriously

    • genpfault2 hours ago |parent

      It was right there[1] in the assembly video.

      [1]: https://youtu.be/pcAEqbYwixU?t=1038

    • ZeWaka2 hours ago |parent

      yes.

  • tra33 hours ago

    Whoa, the intersection of different skills necessary is incredible.

    - software

    - math

    - 3d printing

    - electronics

    Very impressive.

  • dllu4 hours ago

    I once considered making a spinning persistence of vision similar to this one specifically for visualizing lidar data from a spinning automotive lidar. The lidar has 128 beams and you could make a spinning array of 128 1D LED displays at exactly the same beam angles to recreate the point cloud from the lidar.

    Anyway, I was too lazy to make it, but it's super neat to see that someone actually made something similar.

  • qoez3 hours ago

    Never knew this was possible. I hope some huge company with lots of resources jumps on this and drives up the resolution and price.

    • tclancyan hour ago |parent

      >drives up the resolution and price.

      Uh, I get the former but why the latter?

    • Night_Thastus3 hours ago |parent

      Why would they?

      I mean, I think it's SUPER cool and would not mind one sitting on my desk.

      But from a product standpoint...? It doesn't scale well in size, resolution or refresh rate.

      VR is pretty much better if you want a the kind of immersion I think you'd be looking for, and even selling that is hard.

  • simultsopan hour ago

    Amazing, finally a refreshing, motivation source!

  • ge963 hours ago

    interesting it is different than these kinds

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM7wsXcYQFM

    which I guess is the "volume" part