Touchable holography

Touchable holography may just be the next big step for holographic displays. Over the years, there has been considerable progress in developing holographic displays but none of these allow an immersed user to truly interact with the displayed objects because touch is missing.

Until now, that is!

Researchers from The University of Tokyo Shinoda lab have figured out a way to add touch to holograms.

First, they utilize an LCD-based, concave mirror, holographic display for displaying the 3D images. Using this display, images appear to float 30cm away from the display surface. Second, they use a couple of Wii controllers for hand tracking in order to determine the user's hand location with respect to the displayed objects. Third, they provide tactile feedback using their own Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display (AUTD.) The device uses acoustic radiation pressure to induce tactile feedback as users interact with the displayed objects.

The touchable holography prototype will be on display at the 2009 SIGGRAPH conference in the emerging technologies track.

The video below explains how touchable holography works.