Brooklyn-based startup Looking Glass is crowdfunding a new holographic photo frame that can display depth-mapped iPhone photos in 3D.
The Looking Glass Portrait is a 7.9-inch photo frame-shaped display that allows 3D objects, like a depth-mapped 3D image snapped by an iPhone 12 Pro, to be viewed from multiple viewing angles and various perspectives.
Powered by a built-in Raspberry Pi 4, the Looking Glass Portrait can function without a computer to deliver 60 frame-per-second holographic images. Users can snap those images using an iPhone’s LiDAR sensor or TrueDepth camera, or other depth-sensing camera products, and edit them in an included HoloPlay Studio app.
There’s More to a Portrait Shot…
Now, you might be wondering how does the device transform a simple portrait mode shot into a 3D hologram. Well, for the unaware, a simple portrait mode image is not that simple. To capture a portrait shot, a smartphone has to capture the depth-information of a subject.
In the case of traditional portrait shots, as the priority is the background bokeh-effect, the smartphones use the depth-information to generate a picture with amazing bokeh. However, as the Looking Glass Portrait creators note, systems can also use this depth- information to generate a 3D version of a subject.
Price and Availability
The Looking Glass company is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for its product. It has already collected more than $1.65 million from 5,974 backers at the time of writing this article.
So, if you are looking for your own personal holographic display, you can back the project for $199 (~Rs. 14,709). The company aims to ship the product starting from March 2021.
