Your Friendly Bi-Weekly Production Update (July 9, 2021)
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 11:12:38 PM

Nikki here with your bi-weeky update! 

TLDR: We are on track with the July shipments that we mentioned in our last two updates.

In the next three weeks, we'll be shipping out 2400 more units to fulfill the majority of the super early bird, 2-pack bundle, 10-pack bundle and Looking Glass Portraits in the early holographic capture bundle reward tiers with all other tiers being fulfilled shortly after in August.

In the last update, we also mentioned that we were qualifying a MCU replacement for the STM32 chip that is experiencing major shortages due to the global supply chain crunch. These replacements are only relevant to the tail-end of shipments in August and while we are still in the earlier stages of qualification, things are looking promising. Our work on this issue is meant to ensure identical quality between current and replacement systems.

These replacement MCUs do require a rewrite of some of the firmware that runs on them however, meaning there is a potential risk of a few week pushback to some of the orders scheduled to go out at the end of August, depending on how that in-progress rewrite goes. But as of this update, there is no change to the ship schedule above.

Light Field Photo Rail

For the couple hundred people who are waiting for your light field photo rails, there are no new updates we can share about the shipment schedule as we're focusing our engineering capacity over the next few weeks entirely on building and shipping Looking Glass Portrait units. Rest assured, your light field rails are all assembled and literally sitting in our office now — but there is a further firmware update and qualification we want to get into the rails before shipment. We will aim to have a more accurate estimation on remaining rail shipment schedules in the next update.

What else is happening?

This past week (July 1st to be exact), we opened the Brooklyn offices back up. Words can't begin to describe the thrill of seeing some of our co-workers again for the first time in 3D IRL after 15 months of being away, and some even for the very first time. 

For team members who aren't with us in-person, we've been experimenting with community-made tools like this one that came out yesterday by Dave Seidman →

As always, our team is working around the clock to get glorious holographic displays to everyone that is still waiting. If you've any other questions that might not have been answered in this update, please write us at orders[at]lookingglassfactory.com.

If you haven't already and are eager to join a community of hologram creators just like yourself, head on over to our Discord, come hang and chat holograms!

-Nikki & the Looking Glass Factory team.

Your Friendly Bi-Weekly Production Update (June 25, 2021)
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 09:59:03 PM

Hi backers!

We're back with our bi-weekly production update. For those of you still waiting for you Looking Glass Portrait, we have just one update to share this time around but the TLDR is that we are not messaging any new delay

Alternative Component Qualifications 👍

As we mentioned in our last update, over the the last 2 weeks we've been working to qualify an alternative microcontroller (MCU) to replace the original used in most of our systems from STM (which is, as you might remember, a core chip that is seeing global supply challenges, from Teslas to toasters). The good news to come out of this week is that we've confirmed the alternative MCU performs on par with the original in all respects.

Core to this qualification is down to the behind-the-scenes work by our firmware team who have worked tirelessly to guarantee the same level of user experience with this new chip. Now that we've validated a new design that gives us access to two new suppliers, it will improve our flexibility in the supply chain moving forward. As with all of the components we use, we are monitoring the supply schedules on a daily basis.

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While the good news is that some of the world is slowly recovering from COVID-19, the impacts are still reverberating across the manufacturing world. Just a few days ago, there were some early reports on a potential uptick of COVID-19 cases in Guangdong and Shenzhen, the location of some of our suppliers. So far as we know, there are no lockdowns impacting our production or extended team working with these suppliers, and we haven't yet seen any impacts on our supply chain at this point. As always, we will be closely monitoring this development and making any necessary adjustments as new challenges arise.

Long story short, the situation in the world of manufacturing is still very fluid in a way that hasn't been seen in any of our lifetimes, but I'm happy to share in this week's update that our prior commitment is still viable and that there are no new red flags to raise.

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Hologram Happenings

• Last week, Norm from Tested tested some of the software with a Looking Glass Portrait and shared a video of his full experience here.
• Adario Strange from NextReality unboxed his Looking Glass Portrait. (And we think he liked it!)
• Nikki, Shawn and Alvin from the team took some light field photographs of Elise the Frog (which happens to be Alvin's pet frog) and documented all of it. Turns out frogs make great light fields. This and more in this week's Hologram Drop (a weekly release of exceptional holographic content from us to the community — and sometimes, by the community).  

The results? Unfrogettable.

• Speaking of, if you haven't already, I welcome you to join our Discord server where over 2,300 hologram enthusiasts have all come together to chat all things holograms.

Again, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of our backers that are still waiting for your Looking Glass Portrait for your patience so far. The holograms are just around the corner.

- Panda, Nikki & the Looking Glass team

June 2021 — Shipping Update
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 11:07:33 PM

Hi backers,

Shawn here (co-founder and CEO of Looking Glass Factory — and the guy at the end of the Kickstarter video :)

If you're one of the 2,300 folks who have received your Looking Glass Portrait + all your accessories, you can skip this update (and based on what we've seen you creating and sharing online, we're glad you're loving your Looking Glass!). But if you're still waiting for your unit(s), this update is for you.

We've been facing some wild manufacturing and supply-chain challenges so I wanted to go into detail on what's been happening behind the scenes, as you'll see below. But the long story short is, over the last few weeks we've been working around the clock and trying all things possible to meet the time commitments that we made, but I now have to share the news that we're running late on remaining Looking Glass Portrait shipments.

First off, I'm deeply sorry about this delay. I know I told some of you that remaining orders would be going out this month. But yesterday we made the hard decision to put a stop on all outgoing shipments due to a quality issue we found on some components in this second production batch which we are now resolving. While this is not the only challenge we're facing (and more background info on that below), you won't see many units go out in June.

Read on if you'd like more details. And know that from this point on until we get every single one of you your Looking Glass Portrait(s), we'll be sending out an update every other week (and more often if the situation changes).

What does this mean for units that haven't shipped out yet?

To date, we've shipped out 2,300 units. Most of the remaining shipments for those in the earliest tiers have been pushed back to July. We mentioned in our last update that we were on track with fulfillment and we thought that was true until earlier this week, when we found some production-stopping issues on the manufacturing line. This combined with additional chip shortages affecting the second half of production have pushed back the production schedule following this table: 

Why does this keep getting delayed?

Reason 1: Stringent Quality Standards

Quality is extremely important to us, which is why whenever we receive an incoming batch of new components, we do full sorting at the incoming quality control (IQC in production-speak) level and line sorting. These additional efforts are inevitable, especially with a new product like Looking Glass Portrait. If we see one anomaly in an incoming shipment batch, our assembly team does individual quality checks on all incoming stock. 

We spotted a few issues like this over the past few weeks in the second production batch and combined with slower than expected replacement parts, this led us to pause the production line to resolve all outstanding quality issues on this batch.

Reason 2: Global shortage of chips — specifically microcontroller shortages

There's an unprecedented global shortage supply of semiconductors impacting all sorts of products, from cars to coffee machines — and this has impacted us as well. Just like some other major global companies who are facing the same supply pressures, the extended effect of this crisis is starting to surface.

This global supply shortage is part of what caused the delay mentioned a couple months ago, around the Raspberry Pi 4. We were able to buy our way out of that problem for the most part, by paying 20-30% more for Pi 4s from a few suppliers. But the Raspberry Pi 4 is just one element of our entire 300+ part hardware build and there's another component that is now impacting some of our production plans.

The new gating part at the moment is one of the microcontrollers that we use in Looking Glass Portrait. For most of the remainder Kickstarter orders, we have enough supply of the original microcontroller — a module made by STM — but supply of this normally standard component has dried up around the world, meaning for a handful of units from the later fulfillment dates we're working to secure additional supply or qualify an alternative. For updates here, we'll keep everyone in the loop in the coming weeks in our bi-weekly update.

 (Link to hologram here.)

We are taking extreme measures to get around these challenges. One of those is expanding the expertise in our team. On that note, I wanted to let everyone know that we've recently brought on board Panda Ng, our new VP of Manufacturing, to our Hong Kong team. A quick background, Panda oversaw the production and manufacturing line for FitBit in the early days till IPO and I have full confidence that with him joining the team, we will be able to accelerate past some of the unusual challenges that we're seeing right now.

In what order are shipments being fulfilled? Backer X is in the same reward tier as I am, why did they get their units first?

This is a question that I've seen pop up occasionally so wanted to give some background details.

At this point we've fulfilled a quarter of all of our Kickstarter orders. Most of this group falls into the rewards that had listed March 2021 as their shipment date (Super Early Bird, 2-Pack Bundle, 10-Pack Bundle, Early Holographic Capture Bundle). That said, a majority (about 65%) of our Kickstarter orders happen to fall into these four reward tiers. As a result, we've only fulfilled about 2,300 of the 6,200 Portrait units in this first category.

While as much as possible we're trying to go by backer numbers, part of how we've had to arrange our fulfillment is also the survey was filled in before/after the deadline, as well as by what is in your order. Our logistics team is working on arranging this as smoothly as possible but a tricky combination of possible add-ons also complicates things a little, which is why the information we triangulate is not always as specific as we'd like.

Rest assured you will get your Looking Glass and all accessories. And they will be glorious. But we can't always exactly pinpoint shipment date based on backer number and can sometimes give a rough estimate as noted above.

I have part of my order but I'm still missing some additional items

Because of how we've had to navigate logistics challenges there's a possibility that if you ordered multiple Looking Glass Portraits and a variety of add-ons you may have only received 1 x Looking Glass Portrait so far. In this case, your bundle or your add-ons are likely tied to a second (or third) Looking Glass Portrait that has not yet shipped. If you need to enquire about your items specifically, write us at orders[at]lookingglassfactory.com.

I have everything except my Light Field Photo Rail

Of the 300+ Light Field Rails that have been pre-ordered, we've shipped out a total of 80 so far. We've put a temporary hold on the remaining rail shipments until we can confirm reliability on a slight alteration being made to the followup batches of rails to allow for easier future software updates. We've prioritized this behind getting more folks their Looking Glass Portraits, so the result is 220 or so Light Field Rails are still waiting to be shipped out of our factory. We'll make sure to keep everyone updated in our bi-weekly post updates as soon as we know more.

A few final things to note:

I mentioned most of this above but want to highlight a few things so folks don't miss them in this large update:

• We understand that summer is quickly approaching and that folks might be moving around. If you have any special requests on the shipping / or need to update your delivery address, please write us at orders[at]lookingglassfactory.com and we'll do our best to make suitable arrangements.
• Because the manufacturing and logistics landscape is changing so rapidly, we are going to be sending out an update to all backers at least every two weeks. We will do our best to make sure we are giving folks the most updated information (per our knowledge) in these bi-weekly updates.
• Kickstarter backers are prioritized to go out before any other pre-orders that have come through our website or via other channels. You are what made this all possible and we are not going to forget that.
• Please note that all predicted timelines above are for backers who filled in their survey by our set deadline on Backerkit (March 4, 2021). If you filled this survey in anytime after this date, your order will be fulfilled in August.

Again, I'm sorry we got some of your hopes up that you'd be getting your Looking Glass this month, and now we need to back away from that. Changes like this are not something any of us in the team take lightly and I truly appreciate your continued support and patience.

If you need any assistance with your order or need adjustments on anything, please reach out to us at orders[at]lookingglassfactory.com.

The holograms are coming. Just behind schedule. 

-Yours Holographically,

Shawn & the Looking Glass Factory team

SHIP SHIP, HOORAY!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 11:50:27 PM

Holo there, fine folks of the future (say that 3 times fast)!

As we're approaching the shipment date for some of your orders, we've received a couple dozen emails filled with related questions so I'm going to share some of those answers in this update. Here are answers to some of the most pressing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) we've received over the last month:

Did the Suez Canal incident impact the shipment plans for Looking Glass Portrait?

In short, yes. While we haven't had to risk adding months of shipping delays to your Looking Glass Portrait units, we have had to consider absorbing some meaningful monetary hits on shipment costs (up to 3x higher than we anticipated back in December). Reasons for this change include:

1. Having to ship directly via expedited, priority couriers and through our Hong Kong warehouse rather than absorbing months of delays from the backlog of ocean freight delays caused by the blockage.
2. The ripple effect of component shortages from the pandemic.
3. General delays on all things because of Covid, and other reasons like the world apparently not having enough ships to go around!

Fear not. You will not be charged anything extra for a ship that happened to get stuck in a canal. To get around these unexpected delays, we are absorbing all the additional shipping costs and making some logistics power moves to get the shipments through the logjam. The holograms will prevail.

Hooray! So does this mean there are no more delays? 

Well...sort of. When we wrote our last update, we were still measuring these impacts as a whole and while we are not seeing months of delays to fulfillment, you can expect that your shipment might arrive up to a couple weeks later than our last predicted timeline depending on where you're at in the world and what you ordered. All this said, the first shipments are indeed starting to go out end of this week, so if you belong to any of the following tiers you can expect your shipments to ship out end of April and throughout May, with your orders arriving 1-2 weeks after the shipments leave our warm embrace.

• Super Early Bird
• Early Holographic Capture Bundle
• 2-Pack Bundle
• 10-Pack Bundle

We're working on fulfilling the above tiers first in the order in which the, ahem, order was received, with all other reward tiers following shortly after.

What can I expect in the mail?

Almost everything you've ordered will be shipped out in different boxes. This was to save on unnecessary filler space/the dreaded giant box filled with styrofoam packing peanuts.

On top of that, because we've had to make some radical adjustments to our shipping plan in the last month, there is also a chance you may receive one part of your order (e.g. a Looking Glass Portrait and the Azure Kinect) first, though the rest of your order shouldn't be too far behind. All of your items should arrive within 2 weeks of one another.

You will receive an email notification whenever something ships. If you ordered a total of 3 physical items, you can expect 3 separate email notifications with a unique tracking number for each.

Also, we speak to this below but note that all digital downloads, licenses and redemption codes are scheduled to be sent to your email inboxes starting May 4th 😉 .

Now how about the software?

Great question! We've been running loads of tests with a handful of early beta users and internally in the team over the last month and have made major strides in stability and core functionality. All that said, there's so much more we want to do.

But we always feel that way. So, as to not hold back on the release of the tools you need to get started, we are releasing HoloPlay Studio as a beta rather than as final v1.0 software to start.

As a months-long HoloPlay Studio user myself — even as a beta — it truly is a thing of wonder and we hope you'll think so too. If you run into bugs with the beta on a computer configuration we hadn't been able to fully vet in our testing so far, our team is on standby to help work through any and all issues as they arise.

Just want to say a thank you in advance for being in the first batch of folks on planet Earth to ever work with a holographic interface and the new software that drives it, and for spotting and working out the kinks with us. 

Here's what the HoloPlay Studio beta can do:

• Import iPhone Portrait mode photos.
• Import RGB-D photos (either from your own repository or converted using 2D → 3D).
• Import RGB-D videos (recorded via the Record3D app, now with an integrated Looking Glass format export that works immediately with HoloPlay Studio)!
• Import Light Field photo sets.
• Import Quilt photos.
• Import Quilt videos (recorded via Diorama, Depth Recorder or the HoloPlay Unity/Unreal Plugins).
• Light editing functionality functionality which includes changing parameters on focus, "depthiness", zooming, and panning.
• The ability to build playlists and sync that to Standalone Mode functionality.

Reminder on what is still in the works:

• Direct import of Android Portrait photos (this is on target, originally targeted for late summer e.g., Q3. List of compatible phone formats here).
• Direct import of raw light field panning shots captured via the light field photo rail process*. (this is late, originally targeted for v1.0 release).
• Direct import of SBS stereo photos (this is on target, originally targeted for late summer e.g., Q3).

*As a workaround for the next month - whilst this feature is being worked on - we've put together some quick guides on how to convert panning videos into the photosets you need for HoloPlay Studio.

In addition to HoloPlay Studio, depending on your computer you'll be able to use other apps that let you create stunning — yes stunning — holograms:

•  Diorama — advanced editing and dynamic lighting on iPhone Portrait Photos and animated gif stickers.
•  Depth Recorder — record holographic video clips with Azure Kinect.
•  3D Model Importer — create holograms from your existing 3D models
• Expanded support for a variety of 3D creation tools with Looking Glass plugins for Unity, Unreal, and Blender. 

And finally, the licenses & codes?

Your redemption code for 20 free credits for 2D → 3D conversions* will be sent out to you with your tracking number for your Looking Glass Portrait.

If you requested / ordered any of the following:

• Record3D license
• Voxatron license
• Additional 2D → 3D conversions

These will be fulfilled together via Backerkit starting May 4th 😉  regardless of when you receive your Looking Glass Portrait.

All this to say, the holograms are a'coming to your doorsteps and inboxes very shortly! We're also putting the final touches on your onboarding and getting started documentation, as well as a world of tutorials for you to explore once you receive your unit. As always, our team is here to help and if you haven't already, join the Looking Glass hologram community on our Discord here.

tl;dr: IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

Things have been more than a bit busy this month as we're sending out the first couple thousand Looking Glass Portrait units into the wild (to you) and shipping out the beta software that will give these systems life (and give you the power to create holograms of your own). But we're all so thrilled that thousands of you around the world will start receiving your first personal holographic display in the coming weeks.

Still got questions? Not to worry. We're here to answer 'em. You can write us at [email protected] or post in the comments below!

See you holographically real soon,

- Nikki (aka nikkimouse on Discord) & all of us here in the Looking Glass Factory team.

*Reminder for folks just tuning in on what the 2D → 3D conversion service is (we sensed some confusion in the comment boards).

HoloPlay Studio (and Looking Glass Portrait) supports all different types of holographic media loading (incl. iPhone Portrait mode photos, certain Android photos, RGB-D photos and videos, light field photo sets and loads of other types of 3D media) at no extra cost to you. You can load in as many of these photos and videos as you’d like. Locally processed, free, glorious.

The 2D → 3D conversion service that all backers get 20 credits for is something that we added later on in the campaign because different folks had requested support for non-Portrait mode/non-depth photos. Especially for things like archival polaroid photos from your third birthday party that don't happen to be natively 3D. With this in mind, we wanted to thank all of our backers for their support and give away some set of free conversions for everyone to try. Because this is an experimental service that requires cloud processing (at a fee to us), it’s not something that we can offer at an unlimited scale but it’s also not essential in order to run your Looking Glass Portrait -- it’s simply an add-on feature.

Shipping update & holographic cats!
about 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 11:59:17 PM

Friends of the future!

Thank you all so much for your patience while we push full steam ahead on production, preparing your shiny new holograms before they make their way across the ocean to your front doorsteps.

👀  Here's a little sneak peek from our demo testing station:

Before we cover the fun stuff, there are a few logistics updates to attend to first —

Fulfillment of physical goods
 

I'm happy to share that there have been no new delays since this last post about the Raspberry Pi 4 shortages. Which means:

• All reward tiers that had an original ship date of March will start shipping out end of April-May*.
• All reward tiers that had an original ship date of April will start shipping out out end of May-June*.

(*Note that these ship dates are provided for those of you who were able to fill in your survey by the original deadline. For those who filled them out a little later, you might see some slight delays. If you're not sure when to expect your shipment, message us at [email protected].)

Fulfillment of digital goods

While that covers all things hardware, I also wanted to give a quick update on when we plan on shipping out some of the digital software & licenses.

•  Record3D licenses are scheduled to go out middle of April.
•  Voxatron licenses are scheduled to go out middle of April.
•  Your twenty free 2D → 3D conversions redemption codes are scheduled to go out end of April, coinciding with the first Looking Glass Portrait shipments. All additional, purchased conversion redemptions will ship out shortly after.
•  HoloPlay Studio, Depth Recorder & Diorama (v1.0) are all scheduled to ship end of April. A week ago, we made some updates to the HoloPlay Unity Plugin & 3D Model Importer for Looking Glass Portrait compatibility. You can find those here.
   

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What you might have missed

Looking Glass Portrait Beta

Our early beta testers have gotten us super excited about getting these units to you and it's been so incredible to see what folks have already been creating. If you've been following us on Twitter, you may have already seen Ruben's DAT Portraits or René's volumetric self-portraits, to name just a few.

Pi in the oven

Many of you have also asked what enables Looking Glass Portrait to run standalone. The answer, my friends, is a baked-in (get it?) Raspberry Pi 4. Our Software Architect Evan wrote a post on what this new special ingredient means including answers to some frequently asked questions. Get it while it's hot!

Cats also love holograms 

Teamwork makes the dream work

In the last two months, we've added a number of friendly faces to the team, one in particular you will all get to know well — Bryan, our resident Technical Specialist, here to help with your hologram needs. You'll see Bryan pop up in our documentation, tutorials as well as our Discord channel to guide you - dear community - in your journey to create and share holograms. In that time, we've also welcomed Rohit, Matty, Caleb & Shouvick as new members of the Looking Glass Factory team. That said, there is no "i" in "hologram", we're hiring!

What are some of the first things you'll be doing with your Looking Glass Portrait? Leave a note in the comments below (we read everything!) and we'll make sure that by the time of shipment, we can prepare the proper tutorials + documentation you need to get started. I hope you're ready. We certainly are.

To the future!

--   💜  Nikki & the entirely wonderfully wonderful Looking Glass Factory team.

ps, if you're not on our Discord server already, you should be.