Brigham Young University today shared with us a look at their photophoretic-trap volumetric display that they refer to as the “Princess Leia Project.”



“This display is like a 3D printer for light. You’re actually printing an object in space with these little particles.” – Daniel Smalley, BYU electrical engineering professor. BYU engineers have developed a technique for creating a full-color 3D graphic display that can float in free space and is visible from any angle. Inspired by the displays of science fiction–most notably the iconic Star Wars’ Princess Leia projection – the new Optical Trap Display (OTD) technique, creates a 3D volumetric image by trapping and illuminating a particle with a laser, and then scanning the image in free space. Unlike a hologram, a volumetric image is created in free-space and is visible from any angle. BYU electrical engineering professor Daniel Smalley and co-authors publish their research (“A photophoretic-trap volumetric display”) in the January 24, 2018, issue of the journal Nature.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Brigham Young’s Princess Leia Project – Beyond Holograms