Innovation and VR studios allow students to use holograms to display art

Matthew Burkhart Staff Writer

The Innovation and Virtual Reality Studios in D.H. Hill Library offers a space for students to bring their artwork and photos to life through the use of new, accessible hologram technology.

Jeff Wilkinson, a graduate student in graphic and experience design, and NC State alum RJ Washington created holograms for an exhibit with University Li- braries, showcasing their artwork through holographic displays from the company Looking Glass.

Colin Keenan, a University Libraries specialist who works with the Virtual Reality Studio, built the exhibit to showcase University Libraries’ high-tech spaces and the work of students like Wilkinson and Washington. Keenan said holograms are 3D representations of virtual content that are 3D to the perception of the real world. He said Look- ing Glass uses light field displays (LFDs), which are dense fields of projected light, to give multiple vantage points of the same 3D object represented in the displays.

“Someone who’s standing one meter to your right or left is seeing a different segment of the of the full 3D picture, as if you were looking at a boat coming over the horizon through a picture frame,” Keenan said. “You have 2D-ified your view of the thing, but that you can step to a side and have an entirely different view of the object.”

Washington said holograms can be easily understood through quilt images, which display every angle of the image that is meshed together and displayed in the Looking Glass screens.

Although similar to the concept of virtual reality, Keenan said holograms provide a more accessible alternative to the medium.

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