Atraxi image projector

[wayne venomous]

As seen in the first Matt Smith episode:


Ever since I saw the holographic projection of Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie as a kid, I've always wanted to make something that would project an image in mid air and the Atraxi's image projection in the first Matt Smith episode really resparked this idea.

Spinning LEDs seems to be the way to achieve this:

The trick is to make the guts of the thing spin so fast that you don't see them, you only see the light from the LEDs. This video shows how the guts are constructed:

I was thinking of using "Narrowband TV" as the control system, basically converting normal video down to 32 line (similar to John Logie Baird's spinning disk Televisor system of the 1920's/30's) as there's software available to convert video down to 32 lines. The "lines" would of course be the LEDs.

This is just an idea at the moment, but like most of my crazy ideas I like to let them simmer in the back of my mind for a bit and see what happens 

[superrichi1a]

Actually, slightly off topic, but I think it's interesting enough to be of note anyways: Star Wars (and indeed Atraxi) like holographic images are a recent reality and progressing at a phenominal rate. They were first created successfully using only computer generated effects earlier this year, and whilst at first, they could only project 2 frames a minute, one month later, they were projecting 40 frames a minute.
It's one of the so called "3 movie breakthroughs" this year, the other two being a Harry Potter Style Invisibility cloak (actually a crystal) and indeed a partially-functioning Sonic Screwdriver
How's that for a science lesson?

[wayne venomous]

Interesting! Think my fascination with "sci fi" technology is more to do with my disappointment in what I thought the future (i.e. now) would be like.

I suppose the cost of spinning LEDs would be favourable over a real holographic projector, plus 25 frames per second is easily achievable.

[Rassilons Rod]

superrichi1a... Do you have any links to those 3 movie breakthroughs? Sounds like an interesting read!

[superrichi1a]

This is the most recent article I can find on 3D holographic projections:
http://www.techradar.com/news/television/how-3d-video-chat-and-sound-is-shaping-up-993539
And one from when the breakthrough was first made public:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/star-wars-hologram-may-become-tv-reality-2124595.html

And the Harry Potter "Invisibility Cloak":
http://www.kurzweilai.net/physicists-use-natural-crystals-to-develop-invisibility-cloak
Not strictly a cloak, clearly, and the crystal itself is still visible (although turns practically invisible in some light conditions. This is actually being developed just across the road from where I used to go to school

Aaaannnddd, last but not least - the Sonic Screwdriver:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/8181443/Doctor-Who-sonic-screwdriver-could-become-real-device.html
I've seen some more recent news articles about this, that mentioned the device had been succcessfully tested, but I can't seem to find any of those at the moment.

Anyways, enjoy
Now... back to blue boxes...

[Rassilons Rod]

Thats great stuff alright. And the first article has a screengrab from "Ecstatica", a game I used to love playing back in the day. It came out after Doom, but was more 3D than Doom - it had real height and you could go underneath stuff as well as on top.

However it was very short and I used to run time trials on it to see how fast I could do it. I think I got it down to about 10 minutes XD

[wayne venomous]

Some very interesting stuff there!  

Unfortunately, I think 3D stuff is jinxed. John Logie Baird first demonstrated 3D Television back in 1941. It didn't take off then, there's been countless 3D cinema revivals over the past few decades that has also spilled over to domestic TV and that's never taken off and the 3D TV is about to fail again IMHO.

I can see how 3D with the spinning LEDs could work - simply by doing another layer of LEDs inside the main "globe" you could make things appear behind the main picture. Hmm.... LOTS of experimentation is called for I think.

What I may do first is build a system around a "Nipkow disk" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipkow_disk
Once I've got that working, gradually replace the "holes" in the disk with LEDs, then mount them on a drum and so on until I get a good representation of the Atraxi projection above.

EDIT - here's an article from Techradar.com about holographic TVs "Becoming a reality by 2017"
http://3dradar.techradar.com/3d-tech/new-holographic-tvs-predicted-2017-04-11-2010

Can't help but think that's jinxed it somewhat...

[wayne venomous]

I suppose technically this is on topic, the Atraxi scanning the Doctor's mind to learn that he is "not of this world" and of course when each incarnation of the Doctor appears followed by the ultimate line "Hello, I'm the Doctor..... basically run!"

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/
Scientists at Berkeley have used a complex fMRI technique that reconstructs brain images that correspond to pre-recorded pieces of footage that the viewer has seen, giving them a glimpse into visual construction of their test subjects. The technology could be used one day to understand the mental/visual activity in coma patients, and potentially even analyze dreams
How about reconstructing images using brain wave patterns?!

I love it when Sci-fi becomes reality!