Looking Glass Portrait

Ho Ho Ho-lograms
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Jan 06, 2021 at 11:36:42 PM

Friends of the future,

Thanks to your deep love, obsession, and fanaticism about the third dimension, we've reached $2 million!! And that means we've unlocked the next stretch goal. Now, you can record holographic home movies with Record3D, an iOS app that takes advantage of the depth cameras in newer iPhones & iPads.

Any backer who wants one will get a Record3D license for free, on us.

Here are just a few holographic home movies I shot of my Charlie Brown-style Christmas tree with Record3D and then pulled into my prototype Looking Glass Portrait. Minority Report, eat your heart out.

This also allows for some wild experimentation like what Albert, our UX Designer, has been working on the last few weeks. What you're looking at here is a Looking Glass Portrait with a live stream from iPhone's TrueDepth camera. This live stream is being manipulated by a virtual hand controlled by his real hand through a Leap Motion controller.

More on his experiments in his new blog post here.

Meanwhile, we've been bouncing around some new stretch goal ideas. Maybe a holographic joke book ("two holograms walked into a bar, etc etc..."). Or, how about a custom holographic message to all 7,000 of our backers (hmmm). Or perhaps a holographic compendium of reindeer light fields would be nice (unfortunately the reindeer we wrote to are super busy right now). 

But, after much deliberation, we've decided to do something bigger. A stretch goal to be remembered. Something for all. We're working on this over the holidays and are excited to share more details the first week of January. We promise it'll be worth the wait.

Hope everyone has a great holiday, and thank you all for shining a little light at the end of this challenging year. As always, see you in the future!

- Shawn and the Looking Glass Factory team

Advanced hologram magic with Unity and Blender
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 02:28:13 AM

Before the wave of "2020 is hindsight!" notes hit your inboxes, we thought we'd share some light reading to keep you company as you sip your eggnog by the fireplace and ponder the big questions like, who invented eggnog? These two blog posts come from our inestimable Nolan Filter and Alex Duncan and touch on some advanced magic possible when you combine holograms with Blender and Unity.

Note that these posts are for Blenderheads and Unity developers -- so don't be alarmed if these are not in your wheelhouse. We'll be sharing additional posts and tutorials in the coming weeks on the other areas of exploration and creation possible with Looking Glass Portrait, including more on both light field photography and holographic video techniques. As well as some surprises we've got up our sleeves for next week :)

In the meantime, if you've ever played around with Unity in the past or are curious to give it a try, mosey on over here to learn how to Interact with your holographic characters and worlds with Unity 3D!

And find out if it will blend by learning how to take a holo-screenshot of Blender and send it to the Looking Glass!

I'll be signing out for a few days to climb small mountains and make gingerbread cookies with my kiddos (indeed they are real, not just holograms!), and much of our team will be doing the same -- but we'll all be back full steam on January 4. In, you know, the future!

Happy New Year everyone and see you in 2021!

-Shawn & the Looking Glass Factory team

iPhone Portrait mode photos? More like, hologram photos on your Looking Glass Portrait
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jan 04, 2021 at 04:57:34 AM

WOW!!!!! I cannot express how overwhelmed with excitement we are that so many of you have backed this campaign, especially in the past 48 hours. 5,547 BACKERS and over $1.5 million worth of Looking Glass Portrait units sold? I’m just super happy to know that our community of hologram creators and enthusiasts is growing by the thousands.

My name is Missy and I’m the Developer Experience Engineer at Looking Glass Factory. And I’ve been chomping at the bit to express to you all how easy it is to get iPhone Portrait mode photos you take (or have taken already) into a Looking Glass Portrait to see in 3D.

If you’re an iPhone user, you may or may not already understand the incredible 3D magical power you grasp in your fingertips. When you take an iPhone Portrait mode photo, embedded within that photo is a depth map. Here’s the high level of what you need to know:

• iPhone 7+, iPhone 8+, iPhone X, iPhone 11, and 🆕  iPhone 12 phones can all capture photos with depth data (in Portrait mode)
• One SINGLE Portrait Mode photo can create a holographic image in Looking Glass Portrait
• Taking photos with depth in mind is a new and beautiful practice

Let’s hone in on the iPhone Portrait mode photos sitting in your album that are just waiting to become holograms. They‘re at the edge of their two dimensional seats.

As I write this, our software team is hard at work on HoloPlay Studio -  an application with native support for iPhone Portrait mode photos, allowing you to see your 3D data holographically. Together with the Looking Glass Portrait, you can show your friends and family your life in 3D. And if you’re far away from them right now, you will even be able to send photos to them to view in 3D in their Looking Glass Portrait, too.

Viewing photos in 3D is easy. Once you’ve got your iPhone Portrait mode photo on your computer (via email, airdrop, or shared folders), just open up HoloPlay Studio, import a new hologram and select iPhone Portrait. With the Looking Glass Portrait system connected to your computer, you can see and edit your new hologram live in the display.

Edit the depthiness and focus of your import, customize a 2D background and, once you're satisfied, save it to your HoloPlay Studio playlist. From there, you can sync your playlist to your Looking Glass Portrait system to see your memories come to life holographically with the built-in standalone function.

There you have it. From one single iPhone Portrait mode photo, you can make a hologram you captured yourself. What kind of photos do you plan on taking? Got any existing Portrait mode photos you want to see as holograms? Any interesting depth map knowledge to share?

Sound off in the comments below, tweet at us @lkgglass, or email me at [email protected]! Join our discord and share portrait photos right now!!

- Missy (Developer Experience Engineer @ Looking Glass Factory)

P.S. This was just a super quick rundown of what we're unlocking here and we can't wait to go more in-depth with this creation and capture process as folks start to get their Looking Glass Portraits over the next few months.

P.P.S. Since we're blowing past these stretch goals so quickly (thank you!), we're excited to share a new one. If we reach $2 million, everyone who gets a Looking Glass Portrait will be able to record holographic home videos with an iPhone & iPad and view them in your Looking Glass Portrait thanks to our friends at Record3D. The future is in your hands. Please share!

2-Pack Bundle Shipping Cost Adjustment
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 11:55:03 PM

Hi Backers of the 2-Pack Bundle!

We received some messages about your shipping costs. Specifically, some of you have flagged that the shipping cost for two Looking Glass Portraits is more than double the shipping cost of one. Bizarrely, that is actually the case due to complexities around shipping during these times, specifically for volume shipment to the EU, GB & rest of the world. But we agree this doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, the way Kickstarter works is that we can't change the shipping costs in the rewards, those are etched in stone -- but we hear you and here's how we're going to fix it.

For everyone ordering the 2-Pack Bundle (both folks who've already ordered it and folks who will), the price you pay for shipping will be just the logical 2x price of a single Looking Glass Portrait shipment. We will individually process a small refund to backers of the 2-Pack Bundle in the EU, GB & rest of the world to take care of the shipping cost difference at the end of the campaign. 

- your friendly hologram logistics lead, Janice. 

If you have any more questions, post here or write me at [email protected] 

GOAL!! We've escaped Flatland!!
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 12, 2020 at 05:52:00 PM

My palms are sweaty as I’m writing this. I can't believe how fast we blew past the goal for this campaign and honestly all of us here in the lab are just catching our breath. Thanks all for your patience as we rush to answer your questions -- we're taken aback and humbled by how fast this is growing.

When we started this journey 6 years ago, we didn’t know whether holographic displays would become ubiquitous in 10 years, or 20, or 50. We actually didn’t even know if this dream was possible -- it could have been that this just wasn’t a technology that could make the leap from the lab into a product.

That’s why all of us in the Looking Glass team are so blown away that not only is that dream coming true -- thanks to you -- but it’s also clearly a shared dream that’s growing by the minute.

Please continue to spread the word today so everyone in the world knows that the holographic future is here, and now they can get a piece of it!

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Also since it looks like we've blown past our original Stretch Goals, we've added some more and will continue to do so as the campaign rolls on.

Next stop, the future!

-Shawn & the Looking Glass Factory team

p.s. this dream has been a long time in the making. I wrote a little bit about what it took to get here in case you're curious :)