Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds: Tangible Holographic Plasma (SIGGRAPH)

Yoichi Ochiai
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2015–2024
YouTube
1.1M views · 11 years ago · demo · intermediate · dated

A SIGGRAPH demo from Yoichi Ochiai and colleagues of "Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds", where femtosecond lasers create tiny plasma points that float in mid-air and can be touched. The video shows interacting with these glowing 3D points as a display.

HN people share it as a mind-bending mid-air display that you can touch, while noting the skin burns visible in the footage.

“you can see the skin on the person’s finger get burnt as they touch the little tiny plasma balls”
Spatial, VR & AR interfacesInput devices & novel interfaces
#femtosecondlaser#plasmadisplay#mid-airinterface#tangibleinteraction#siggraph

8 comments from Hacker News

j
@joeyspn2015 · in “Tangible Holographic Plasma (SIGGRAPH)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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g
@givan2015 · in “Tangible Holographic Plasma”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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r
@rocky11382015 · in “Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds: Tangible Holographic Plasma (SIGGRAPH)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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j
@jcims2024 · in “Femtosecond lasers create 3D midair plasma displays you can touch (2015)”
This page has been around for a while. If you watch the YouTube video, you can see the skin on the person’s finger get burnt as they touch the little tiny plasma balls. ▶ this video
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j
@jcims2019 · in “Atlas observes light scattering off light”
Like these but less plasma? ▶ this video My favorite part of this is looking at all the toasted skin on the fingertips in the video.
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A
@AndrewKemendo2018 · in “Better than holograms: new 3-D projection”
Using the term thin air is misleading IMO. I saw a slightly different version of this a few years ago [1]. It basically used pulsed laser to create plasma at certain x,y,z without any additional reflective medium added to the environment. However it's crazy loud [2]. From the Nature paper [3] it seems to work on similar principles with the drawback that you need "light scattering (or absorbing and generating) surfaces" instead of free air. In other words you still need some medium for projection/reflection, like a smoke cloud for example: "it is unlikely that the display would function outdoors without an enclosure unless particles were much more strongly confined or steps were taken to refresh trapped particles regularly" [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link
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j
@jonmrodriguez2015 · in “Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds”
An example of "tangible interaction" is pressing this checkbox in this video: ▶ this video In terms of what the projection feels like, this article explains that to some people the laser feels like sandpaper, and to some people it feels like a static shock: link
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N
@Natsu2015 · in “Fairy Lights in Femtoseconds”
Here's the YouTube link with the demo: ▶ this video Someday we may have the displays we see in the movies at this rate.
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