We have not modified the above picture in any way -- Scout's Honor. That's a real baby, wearing a real IR necklace that interacts with a real
Wiimote. What's not real, of course, is the view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
That is generated by Ryan Hoagland's DIY virtual window, a brilliant pastiche of interior design,
RED ONE footage and
Johnny Chung Lee-style headtracking, all directed to your eyes by a Mac Pro feeding a pair of plasma screens. As the viewer moves around, dual 1080p images move the opposite direction, providing the convincing illusion of looking out a real pane of glass at the incredibly detailed scenery beyond. Exciting? Then you'll be giggling like Jr. when you hear it's for sale. After spending a year figuring out how to mount, drive and cool the whole shebang, Hoagland would like you to have one too; he plans to have basic kits ready by July for under $3000. Watch baby-powered plasma in motion after the break, as well as a sweet time-lapse video of the build process.
[Thanks,
Andy, ArjanD]
posted April 15th 2010 3:17PM
I would build one, but I don't have a baby to get it to work... Craigslist maybe?
@Dredog Why do you think it's so expensive?
@deanm $3000 is pretty cheap if the baby is included.
@Dredog
It would be kool if Natal could do the tracking when it comes out. Then you just have an infared camera that track everyone that comes in the room...
@PlatinumSkeet I agree! MS needs to include this with Natal! No need to wear a brick around your neck.
Looks awesome though! :) Now I can change the scene to a snow storm outside, so I don't feel so bad about studying on a beautiful day.
@PlatinumSkeet couldnt agree more, I'm very excited to have me and all of my friends standing in the room and the screen providing the illusion for all of us located in different places throughout the room. tvs are crazy these days!
/s
I had this idea a few months back, though I'm not advanced enough yet to set something like it up yet. Sweet to see that someone pulled it off. When I'm raking in the big bucks I'd love to have something like this in my work area... screens on the wall that can sense my position and change their image to give me whatever view I want.
@Dredog
If only the floor lamp didn't give it away. All that natural daylight "flooding" in and you have a floor lamp? Lol. Nice idea though. Very nice!
@Dredog poor kid is going to grew up thinking that she lives by GGB, so sad...
@Dredog
The baby is sooo cute!
As for saving some money....if you can find a women, Im sure you can make a baby for free; thus saving well over $2900.
@PlatinumSkeet That doesnt' make sense, who's head will the screen track, only one person can make it move other wise it'd look like the house is moving to another person.
@abedinthehouse minimum cost of a baby is 1 bottle of tequila
Once we all live underground to escape the nuclear holocaust, this will be the future.
@dnatapov
Or if we work in the Hive :P
@dnatapov
Damn, I knew Fallout was a true story.
@dnatapov
Women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
@dnatapov "this will be the future"
Not our future of course but the future of 1989 - old man Biff stole the time machine in our future and went back to 1989 to make it rich:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxDbx2bOFRU
This caused a skew in the space-time continuum leading us to this blog. Oh yeah and somethin's got to be done about your kids.
What? It's not in 3D.
I thought everything was in 3D nowadays. ;)
@Meekermoloko
Actually agreed 3d would make this full of win but it's still bad ass
@Meekermoloko
Visual parallax--what so-called 3D video is all about--is not all that important a factor when viewing faraway scenes. True 3D is when what you see changes as your viewpoint does. This system here is much more realistic than any lame "Real-D" movie.
@xyglyx
yea, sure, but doesn't this limit the experience to a single person?
couldn't 3D be used to share the experience across everyone in the room.
@BrianH If it were a volumetric or lightfield display, then everyone in the room would see the effect. If it were just stereoscopic, then the effect would still be limited to one person.
A volumetric display would be impractical, since it would have to be as large as what you want to see.
A lightfield display requires pixels to emit many different RGB values in different directions. Practical ones don't exist yet.
A stereoscopic display only emits two different RGB values (one for each eye) for each pixel, in all directions.
@CityZen
I think it would be much simpler (not to mention cheaper ;)) to make the effect with the use of an augmented reality technology. As u've said, screen that can project multiple RGP values in different directions doesn't yet exist, and once/if someone does figure how to make one, the price will be high as a mount Everest for quite some time :)
But with the use of augmented reality principle the same effect could be achieved with now day technology. The only limitation are video goggles - they still have poor resolutions, are too big, ugly and still fairly expensive - plus you'd need a smal portable machine that would project graphics and last more than 5 minutes ;))). But you wouldn't need to buy LD screen, u'd just put some markers on the wall (u wouldn’t even need a window frame), and AG would render everything u'd want on it.
Hell with the use of AG every single person in the room could view a different scene of their choice :).
The IR necklace makes this ridiculous.
I still want one, though.
@zangetsu2
Agreed, this would be awesome if it werent for having to wear a brick around your neck whenever you wanted it to be functional.
@zangetsu2
It would make more sense to have a pair of tiny LED's attached to glasses (or even a ball cap), like Johnny Chung Lee did in this video at 3:52: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/23/get-your-head-in-the-game-with-wii-remote-vr-display
Look a few seconds before that, and he turned the TV into a window just like these guys did above.
Now just imagine doing this with a 3D TV and attaching LEDs to the 3D glasses... THAT is what I want for Christmas.
@zangetsu2 for a truly amazing brick-necklace-less experience you could just implant 2 ir leds into your head right above your eyes. actually 1 ir led in the middle of each eye would be ideal.
@RainbowVomit Face recognition/eyes tracking anyone?
@zangetsu2
natal or eyetoy should be able to make this IR necklace-free
Why would you want to spend so much money on this?
@ifinoxonifi
Because you can.
@ifinoxonifi
It's good to show other engineers out there that people still want this. We wanted this ever since Total Recall. Maybe he works for a plasma company to get discount TVs and uses solar panels for the power ... or maybe he's just rich.
The average person won't do this now, but when we have cheap enough LCD wallpaper or paint (or whatever they'll use) ... everyone will get it. People in small apartments won't feel as cramped as they do now.
You won't use it simply for nature scenes either. You can use it to simply change the color or pattern on the walls with a touch of a button ... like changing the wallpaper on your monitor today.
@Meekermoloko
great use for a couple of those 4k x 2k screens they just plugged.
@untitled
Do you really think "because you can" is a good reason for the average income person to spend thousands of dollars on a false window installation?...Get out of my face.
That's really cool. I'll get one when they come in OLED and I can see the real world outside when its turned off.
i thought the baby was wearing an ipad around it's neck.
Can I please have Elwynn Forest outside my windows?
@Research Paper
No way.... Ice Crown
@Research Paper
I want the moon
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0612/moonpan_apollo17_big.jpg
@kpgalligan
If you could have a live feed of the moon, I believe that would be epic.
This without the Wii remote just replace it with MS Natal when it comes out.
@MoonWalkerCTE as long as the view isn't Neverland Ranch.
@MoonWalkerCTE That's the first thing I thought! It would be really cool with a wall mounted TV. If the Xbox was more quiet, I would just leave it on all the time. It could be like a screensaver, then a simple voice command, gesture, or turning on a controller would switch to the main Xbox menu.
I want this for my cats. Rainy day, turn on the spring edition, birds outside window view.
@joelaf
Be better if it was transparent when turned off though. Then it could display other handy things while a normal window view is happening. Like weather forcasts, news, TV
@joelaf Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a screensaver for your TV that doesn't have to move the picture in relation to your cat? I doubt your cat would notice the the picture is moving relative to it.
@engadgetcomexcludeengadget
i actually LOLed at that
I want to build one of these for my cubicle
That is full of win.
Meh.
This is one of those pointless-but-cool projects for smart people that have too much time and money.
Would have been cooler if they used a face-recognition webcam instead of needing to carry around a Wiimote all the time. Also when it comes down to it, it's really just a gag, and going through all that trouble and expense (a spare HDTV and Wii components) for a visual gag like that is kind of dumb.