The Looking Glass Factory, who previously launched their Looking Glass Portrait as a project on Kickstarter, have announced their new Looking Glass Go, a portable Holographic Display.
The Kickstarter campaign was launched today (5th December 2023), and for the first 48 hours two super early bird offers are available for the display.
Some of the details given by The Looking Glass Factory are as follows:
Looking Glass Go: Your portable holographic display for spatial memories
Since 2014, we’ve been working with a global community of thousands of hologram hackers and 3D creators to develop something that most people believed was impossible: a holographic display that anyone could use, that can bring 3D holograms into the real world.
Now after shipping tens of thousands of the world’s first generation of holographic displays, we’ve come up with something that will finally bring holograms to everyone.
Any photo can become a hologram
Shoot instant spatial photos with your phone and view them with incredible depth and detail as holograms. Or turn older memories from your archives into a stream of 3D holograms delivered to your Looking Glass Go over WiFi.
Advanced spatial photography with your phone
For our fellow photo nerds out there, you can also use advanced spatial photography techniques like Gaussian Splats and NeRFs to capture and relive moments from every angle like never before.
Infinitely expandable through holographic apps
Explore a world of other apps, including holographic AIs you can customize, powered by ChatGPT.
Why now?
With the upcoming shipments of the Apple Vision Pro and new spatial 3D capture capabilities in phones, we’ve decided it’s about time for a headset-free holographic device for mainstream users.
First prototyped almost five years ago and now hundreds of prototypes later, Looking Glass Go is designed to deliver on that science fiction dream promised for decades— holograms you can experience together with friends and family, no VR or AR headset required.
It’s both our most advanced Looking Glass — super thin, incredible depth and detail (2x the holographic pixel density of anything else), WiFi connected — and at the same time, it’s also the easiest to use.
I know there was a mixed reaction by the stereoscopic community to the Looking Glass Portrait after the stretch-goal ‘s promised direct stereo-image support didn’t materialise and a limited number of free conversions of mono-images. I guess the Looking Glass Go will also not directly support stereo photo imports (did you know that you can generate free depth maps in StereoPhoto Maker?). However, I still enjoy using mine, and it is always popular when I show it to others, using multiple photos imported in a particular format. I use it as a tool to enable me to share some of the joy and feel of stereoscopy with people who can’t see in stereo, providing a kind of access that doesn’t rely on binocular vision or glasses/viewers. As my friend Rachel Nordstrom said when hearing about the Looking Glass Portrait for the first time, “This is the future the 80s kids were promised.”
As always, there are risks backing Kickstarter projects, as there are no guarantees. The Looking Glass Factory, however, have a very good track record on delivering their products. Please see the ‘Risks and Challenges’ section on the project’s page for more information.
I’ve backed this project and look forward to seeing the Looking Glass Go’s possibilities, especially with ever-improving AI conversions and compatibility with smartphones. For more details, please visit the Kickstarter Project, which finishes on 16th January 2024, but is already nearing its target within the first hour or so (currently less than £500 away)!
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