The first time I saw a laser video projector was around 1980. It was a behemoth device larger than a Smart Car, with large water hoses attached to keep it from bursting into flames. When you turned it on, the neighborhood lights would dim (slight exaggeration). Even at that, the picture itself was pretty dim. The quoted price was $350,000. The delivery time was "give us an order and we will tell you". The demo had to be restarted three times and the colors were really strange. Nevertheless, I fell in love with the concept!
You see, the basic idea of video laser projectors is to scan a laser beam in a raster pattern to make a picture. Its like old CRT televisions only it is a laser spot scanning left to right, top to bottom to make a picture. If you have ever waved around a laser pointer really fast, you'll get the basics of the idea.
This means you are creating a picture without using a lens. You are simply pointing a laser beam in a very fancy way. The result is a picture that is in focus no mater where you point the device. The image automatically wraps itself onto any curved shape. The image can instantly be any shape you want and best of all, you can whip the projection to any spot in the room and make a picture there. If the surface is close, the picture will be small and brighter. If the surface is further away, the picture will be larger and dimmer - but always in focus.
I have been imagining applications for projected images with these characteristics for decades. Unfortunately, I have never been able to implement any of them.
That first company never made it out of the gate. From then on, every 5 years another contender entered the field. For the first 20 years or so, all contenders were in the $300,000 range. Colors got better. Features were refines. Reliability always sucked. None of them ever delivered a viable product. The problem was essentially that big, bright, long running, stable and reliable laser are not an available technology. However, small, solid state, reasonably bright and reliable lasers HAVE become available.
So flash forward to seven years ago. I was cruising the dark and dingy side aisles of my favorite display technology trade show. This is a really geeky show called SID, and the side aisles are where the really good stuff is hiding. Suddenly I spotted a couple of engineers in a small 10 X 5 booth huddled around a small sugar cube with a mess of wires going in and out at odd angles... 5 inches or so from this cube was a red video picture about 4" in diagonal. It was a tiny little laser projector. It was dim, it was monochrome red, but it was also a new twist to my laser projector fantasies.
It turned out these two engineers worked for Symbol, the world's largest bar code scanner company and had convinced their boss to let them build this idea. I probably spent over an hours talking to them. When I saw them again the next year, they were in the same small booth and did not look happy. Motorola was about to buy the company and they thought their project was sure to get the ax.
They disappeared.
Two years later, the technology popped up again. This time from a larger, seemingly well funded startup. I don't know if my two little engineering buddies were a part of this or not, but I was excited and started to track MicroVision's efforts in this area.
In September, 2009 they announced that they were ready to sell and ship a pico laser projector. In January I saw them again at CES and took a look at their production unit.
The MicroVision Pico Laser Projector actually works. The colors look good. The picture (keeping it around 18" diagonal) is bright enough to be useful and crisp. And the price is $500 at retail... or will be if they actually ship.
IMAGINING APPLICATIONS
Philip has been servicing and repairing hydraulic systems on airplanes for almost 10 years. He has never had a tool like this before. Attached to his safety work glasses is a small device with two cameras. One forward looking camera sees what he sees, and one backward looking that tracks his eye so the system knows exactly what he is looking at (see: APPLYING AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNOLOGY)
Mounted on the other side of the glasses is a small pico laser projector. He glances at the smooth band on the sleeve of his new service overalls.
Instructions appear with animated diagrams of the procedure he is about to perform. He turns his focus to the complex new hydraulic assembly. He sees arrows are projected onto the assembly, highlighting the next part to address. He glances back to his sleeve and confirms the step. He wonders if the new engineers coming up using this stuff will ever really know how to use manuals and blueprints.
He makes a mental note to ask his brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, whether they are now using similar technologies for operations.
His system flashes and he gets back to the job at hand.
Theo applying laser video projection technology...
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Theo,
ReplyDeleteI saw a rather large laser projector about 10 years ago now. To my knowledge, it never became a real product. One interesting thing was that it was "sticky", that is to say the projected image interfered with my normal saccadic eye movements.
They also seemed to believe that if you accidentally looked into the projector from a position up near the screen, you could really damage your vision. Never sure if that was a joke or a fact, and didn't feel like testing it out.