The series of three spots was produced on behalf of Sony Europe by Studio Output and Marshmallow Laser Feast to promote the immersiveness of movies rented or purchased from the PlayStation Store, and they definitely get the point across with these spectacular short clips. Incredibly, all three clips were shot in real-time, with zero edits or post-production. Everything you see was an optical effect seen through the lens of the camera. Michel Gondry would be proud. Watch, and see what I mean:

The scenes were created by projecting images onto various 3-dimensional surfaces, and then syncronized a variety of real-world props, booby traps, and triggers in the enviroment to move along with the scene changes. As you saw in the clips, live actors also helped move around various props and contrivances to help with the immersion. They shot the entire thing with a Steadicam, with several of PlayStation Move controllers strapped to it, as well as EyeToy cameras around the room in order automatically track motion and adjust the scene accordingly.

Now if only Sony could make a real holodeck, I’d buy one.

The “talking mask animation engine” conveys emotion just like humans do. It will blink and even raise it’s virtual eyebrows. Obviously this could be big for video conferencing, but it has many other applications as well.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

How about putting a face you know on a cold sex bot? Maybe it could be used as a virtual spy, fooling people into giving up any info you are looking for. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

[via PopSci via Theweek]

At the end of the day when darkness falls, Olaf fires up a projector of some sort inside the brain and it projects video from the day onto the inside of the ginormous brain. Weird I know, but if you look at the car in action on the video below it’s actually pretty cool.

Mooij apparently crafted the giant brain out of foam glued to the cut out back of a car and then carved the foam to look like a brain. This may be the weirdest art project I have ever seen. Weird, but cool.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via designboom]

The MMOV (Multi Media Offroad Vehicle) can be driven to a venue, to quickly facilitate amazing projection-mapping shows just about anywhere, anytime. It’s got 6-wheel drive, and can carry up to 15,000 pounds of equipment on board. Everthing can be hidden beneath the truck’s sideflaps, and quickly revealed for quick setups, (and fast getaways).

The MMOV not only can go offroad, but the truck can be loaded with scads of projection equipment for pulling off impromptu “guerilla” projection shows. It can carry around up to 24 15,000 Lumen projectors, 6 crazy-bright Barco HD30 (30,000 Lumen) or Christie Roadie HD +35 (35,000 Lumen) projectors. The truck can also be used as a mobile DJ/VJ station.

Since Visual Drugstore is based in Munich, Germany, I’m not sure how likely it is that you’ll get to see one of their light shows outside of Europe, but if they can figure out a way to drive across the ocean, maybe those of us here in the U.S. will get to see it too.

For now, you can check out a couple of video examples of the MMOV in action below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

For some reason, this truck sort of reminds me of the “EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle” from Stripes. Maybe I can take it for a ride to get it washed.

Thankfully, these nasty many-legged creatures aren’t real. In fact, they’re digitally-projected images. Glowing Pathfinder Bugs was created by Anthony Rowe and Squidsoup. The interactive display lets you manipulate the sand to unearth insect colonies, then let a virtual bug crawl into your hand. it’ll follow your movements once you pick one up.

Here’s a video clip showing off the little glowing buggers in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Weird. Cool, but weird.

[via Core77]

Researchers Peter Barnum Srinivasa Narasimhan, and Takeo Kanade at Carnegie Mellon University have come up with a way to project 3-dimensional images onto multiple curtains of water to form a volumetric display. The system uses layers of water dripped from tiny needles and slightly offset from each other. A single projector rapidly alternates images between the different water curtains to form a single image. Since there are four separate layers hanging in space, you can actually view the 3D effect without glasses. You can see it in action in the video below, but you’ll have to take their word for it that it actually looks 3D.

[New Scientist via VizWorld via 3D-Display Info]

Projectors beam down the field, while a camera tracks the movement of the reflector. The Sportpong software was built using vvvv, a “multipurpose tool kit for real time video synthesis.”

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Frankly I’d rather play with an actual football, but then that wouldn’t be nerdy at all.

[via The Awesomer]

As is the case with all 3D tech, HoloADs work by fooling the brain into thinking it’s seeing something that doesn’t really exist. HoloAD displays work by using a set of three independent images, projected onto the trapezoidal sides of a see-through glass pyramid (the back side is flat), so you can walk 180-degrees around the projection. The result is an image that looks like an animated, full-color hologram. In addition, the display units can hold an actual object under the glass, and can be made to look like that object is the originating source of the 3D projection. Just load up the  properly prepared FLV video footage onto a USB flash disk, and the HoloAD unit does the rest.

While the brief shakycam videos I shot below give you a little sense of how HoloADs work, the effect is nothing short of spectacular when you see it up close and personal.

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Click to View Embedded Video Clip

And here’s an “official” video from Innovision that shows off a couple more 3D objects:

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While the demos I saw at CES included such mundane things like an iPhone and a silly looking pufferfish, I really want one of these loaded up a tiny R2-D2 projecting a repeated graphic of Carrie Fisher saying “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

For his work titled 905, artist maybites suspended 67 strings of ping pong balls in a cylindrical formation, with each ball acting as a sort of pixel for projecting digital images. As an individual enters the cylinder of balls, a webcam tracks the person’s movements which in turn impact the images displayed on the ping pong balls.

By setting up a special mirror in the ceiling, the projector beams are reflected onto the surfaces of the white balls, creating an ethereal glow that almost looks like the light is emanating from the balls themselves.

Here’s a short video clip showing off the ping pong ball light curtain in action:

From the looks of it, maybites created the installation in late 2007, but there’s no information on when or where you can see 905 in person. For now, I guess you’ll just have to settle for the pictures and video above. Or you could always try and make your own ping pong projection screen.

The L65A90 is so awesome that people who don’t even own the thing are giving it ZOMG LAZERZ! customer reviews. I’m not kidding. And what’s not to love? Naturally, the LaserVue supports full 1080p resolution for a super sharp HD picture. It’s got a viewing angle of about 160 degrees, it’s 3D-capable, and come on, it’s 65 inches of laser powered HDTV with twice the color over 200%! Plus it has 4 HDMI inputs, and it can detect inputs as they are plugged in, thanks to it’s Easy Connect feature.

The L65A90 is energy efficient too: it consumes only 135 W; Mitsubishi claims that that’s half of what comparably-sized LCD TVs would consume, and a mere third of what Plasma TVs gobble.

But its $7,000 USD price tag negates whatever customers will save off the electricity bill. Then again, if you’re rich enough to afford a $7,000 TV, I don’t think you care if it’s energy efficient or not. The important thing is that it’s a World’s First Something Something, and it has twice the color over 200%. Tell your butler to get three Mitsubishi’s L65A90s at Amazon; one for you, one for him, one for me.

[laservue spec sheet via devicepedia]

The piece, entitled I, ball used a webcam along with special processing software to detect people as they pass the display window. A series of digitized eyeball movements then follow the those who approach the window. The installation was on display at the recent Exposed @ VillaNuts show in Den Haag, Netherlands.

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I think I’m gonna have some weird dreams tonight.

The 16 x 8-foot interactive display allowed multiple visitors to simultaneously control audio, video, photos and other multimedia content using their hands to navigate.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The installation was put together by Obscura Digital and commissioned by HP as part of an advertising campaign for the event.

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GUI Wiz Darren David was responsible for putting together the user interface using Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF.) According to David, the entire project was designed, developed an built in just four weeks.

[via Fresh Creation]