The Holospace

The Holospace is a concept for a truly 3d way to interact with your computer.  It would allow for some very sci-fi interfaces and hopefully make 3d modeling and CAD a lot easier. It could display nearly any object and sense your hands or other objects to allow you to interact with the computer in 3d. In this instructable, I will show you how it would work, and then show you how I made it in 123D Design. If you like this Instructable, it would be great to get your vote for the 123D Design Challenge!

One of the biggest parts of this is the display. It runs using four projectors, a head-tracking camera, and some shutter glasses. The projectors project onto a four sided box of glass covered in rear-projection film. Using the camera and some markers on the glasses, the computer gets the position of your head and can then adjust what it shows to make it look 3d. Here is a video with a good example of how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2CbiOikirrg
The shutter glasses would be used with the projectors, which are 120hz, to show a different image to each eye making the illusion even stronger, or to allow two people to share the workspace.

The other big part of the system is the object tracking cameras. There are two infrared cameras (the ones on the sides, the one in the middle is for head-tracking), and three high power infrared LEDs. Using an algorithm similar to the leap motion, it would turn it into a point cloud, which can be used for detecting objects, gestures, touches, or any other interactions. It would also allow it to use the four sides as giant touch screens as well.

The first step in making this in 123d is to create the glass box that will be projected on. I made it with just four cubes stuck together, but I didn't use the combine->join tool just yet, and you will see why in the next step.

The base the glass sets on is designed so that the glass is only supported around the very edge, that way the projector can still project onto all of the bottom panel of glass. It was made by taking a cube and making it a bit bigger than the bottom panel of glass, then copying that piece of glass using Ctrl+C, then Ctrl+V (I would save before doing this, it sometimes caused it to crash, losing a lot of progress!) to use with the combine->subtract tool to create a nice indentation to hold the glass. After that, I made another copy of the bottom panel of glass and scaled it down a bit and used it with combine->subtract to finish the base, leaving a small lip for glass to be set on. I then just added a couple of cubes and scaled them a bit to make the legs.

The projectors start off as a cube, but then I scale it a bit to make it look a bit more like a projector. I added a cylinder and rotated and scaled it, then pushed it into the cube. Using the combine->subtract tool I cut out a hole for the lens, and then chamfered the edge a bit. A slightly squished sphere is used for the lens and slid into place.

Now we get to place the projectors around our base! First, I added a cube, scaled it, and then slid it between the sides of the base. I then made another cube, scaled and rotated it, and placed it in position as the mirror for the lower projector. I then put the projector right in front of the mirror and then duplicated it and positioned it to project onto the back panel. I just used some cylinders that I rotated and scaled to create supports for the new projector.

To finish up the structure, I box selected the projector and its supports and duplicated it. I then rotated it, and moved it to project onto a side of the glass. After that, I adjusted the supports to connect to the base.

To make the computer, I created a cube, scaled it, positioned it, and then chamfered three edges of it.

To make the camera mount for the Holospace, I first created a cube. Then using the push/pull tool on different faces, I made a piece of the mount to fit over a side panel of glass. I copied it and moved it to the other side, and then created another cube to make the back piece. I then added a fourth cube to make the upright beam. After copying it to the other side, I made fifth cube to make the beam across.

For the cameras, I started with a cylinder, rotated it onto its side, and made a duplicate, which I shrunk slightly and positioned inside the first cylinder. I used the combine->subtract tool to make a hole for the lens, then chamfered the inner and outer edge of the cylinder. I then slid a slightly scaled sphere into the opening for the lens. After adding a sphere for the body of the camera, I added a cylinder, scaled it down a bit, and put it in to position as the mount.

Once the camera is complete, I moved it into position onto the left side of the beam over the Holospace. I then copied it, and put the duplicate on the right side. I also put one in the center, angled out, for head-tracking. The next part is to make the LEDs. They are made of a cylinder topped with a sphere, which I copied into three spots along the beam and an extra one for later, set off to the side. I then used the three LEDs in the beam to cut out the holes for the LEDs using the combine->subtract tool. I then took the extra one, scaled it down a bit, and made three copies to fill the holes, completing the LEDs.

I just added some simple materials such as brushed metal and black plastic, and called it good. I am still very new to 123D Design so I may not have done things the most efficient way, but I still hope you learned something. Thanks for reading!