[An Australia-based company has opened a “Hologram Zoo” in Brisbane and plans to open others around the world. A story from The Debrief and excerpts from coverage in New Atlas provide details (the original versions include more pictures and the New Atlas story includes a video). For a related April 2023 story, see “Researchers Have Developed an Incredible New Method of Producing Realistic Holograms” in The Debrief. –Matthew]
[Image: Credit: Axiom Holographics]
Journey to the Serengeti or Walk with Dinosaurs at the World’s First “Hologram Zoo”
By Tim Mcmillan
July 26, 2023
In a futuristic innovation blending technology and wildlife, an Australian-based technology company, Axiom Holographics, has unveiled the world’s first “Hologram Zoo” in Brisbane, Australia.
Leveraging advanced multi-viewpoint 3D display tables, Axiom says this remarkable techno-zoo provides visitors with an immersive, dynamic, and multi-dimensional safari experience.
Wearing position-tracked glasses, visitors to the Hologram Zoo are surrounded by life-like animals from various world regions. A graphics engine in the glasses creates a unique image for each eye, resulting in 3D images that seemingly float mid-air and maintain their position even when visitors move or walk around.
“All the animals look real and solid, but they are actually made out of laser light,” an excerpt from the Hologram Zoo‘s website reads. “They are 3D, so you can walk around them and touch them (but your hand goes straight through them as they are made of light).”
From the rudimentary light-splitting and interference patterns first demonstrated by Dennis Gabor in the late 1940s, holography has seen immense advancements over the past few decades.
Modern holography, like that found at the Hologram Zoo, leverages advanced light field rendering techniques, depth perception algorithms, and eye-tracking capabilities to create complex volumetric and dynamic displays.
The applications of modern holographic technology are as varied as they are ingenious. Posthumous holographic concerts have become a growing trend in the entertainment industry, with deceased icons like Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson given new “life” on stage.
Earlier this year, retail clothing chain H&M announced it was installing Proto Epic hologram displays at some of its storefronts, offering life-size, 4K UHD holograms of fitness instructors wearing Move athletic clothing.
In healthcare, holography is revolutionizing medical imaging and surgical procedures. Physicians can now visualize and interact with 3D holographic images of a patient’s anatomy, improving diagnosis accuracy and surgical precision.
According to a recently released report, the 3D holographic display and services market is projected to experience “massive” growth over the next seven years.
This rapid expansion sets the stage for groundbreaking applications of holographic technology, suggesting Axiom’s Hologram Zoo could be the first in many immersive holographic experiences we could see in the future.
Axiom’s Hologram Zoo includes 16,000 square feet of interactive space, featuring two 65-foot-long “tunnels” with screens on three walls and several smaller 16-foot rooms with four-wall coverage, thus providing near-total visual immersion.
The “zoo” offers 25 distinct tunnel experiences, ranging from African safaris to prehistoric landscapes teeming with dinosaurs and underwater environments.
According to Hologram Zoo’s website, smaller rooms offer unique non-animal related experiences, such as hologram escape rooms or holographic sports and arcade games.
On its website, Axiom explains that its holographic technology does not involve virtual reality, which the company describes as involving “big helmets with screens that shine into your eyes. Nor does a visit to the Hologram Zoo involve augmented reality or projection mapping.
“Holograms are far more impressive than those older forms of technology,” the company writes. “Holograms use Lasers to project large objects in the air that lots of people can see together. They can be animated, glowing, or even interact with the audience.”
Intriguingly, the Axiom also explicitly clarifies that guests will not be treated to a Roman Colosseum-like bloodsport experience during their visit to the Hologram Zoo.
“The Hologram Zoo does not have any animals attacking or eating each other, there is no blood or animals in distress,” a Q&A section on the zoo’s website reads. “Many of the scenes have been purposefully designed to be peaceful and awe-inspiring. However, some children may be scared in some scenes, such as roaring dinosaurs.”
“Hologram entertainment centers are a fantastic way to be teleported to places that you could not normally visit,” Bruce Dell, Axiom CEO, said in a press release. “For example, I do not think people really know just how big a whale is, but when they see a giant life-sized whale swim past them at hologram zoo, they all seem to pause in reverent silence because it is something that they would normally never get the opportunity to see in real life.”
According to Dell, the Brisbane Hologram Zoo is a test site for perfecting the technology before global expansion. After a six-month run, Axiom’s CEO says the company plans to open similar centers in Japan, Texas, and Europe.
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[From New Atlas]
“Hologram zoo” opens in Australia
By Loz Blain
July 26, 2023
… [The Zoo is] built around a much larger version of Euclideon’s multi-viewpoint 3D display tables and Unlimited Detail graphics engine. …
Yes, you need glasses and screens and a darkish room, but no, it’s not like a 3D movie. Essentially, the glasses are position-tracked, and a graphics engine generates a different image for every eye that’s looking at the screens, to render whatever’s happening from that eye’s unique perspective.
All of these perspectives are mashed into a single image projection – it looks like static on an ancient TV to the naked eye – but each lens is a crystal frequency separator that filters out everything but the image created especially for that eye.
That means you have a 3D image that appears to float in the air, that stays in place if you move your head or even walk around it, and that multiple people can view at once from different perspectives. Yes, you can deliver a similar experience with virtual or augmented reality headsets, but they’re big and heavy on your noggin, and these aren’t, so they feel less isolating and more social.
It works very well – I’ve seen it in person, back when [Axiom’s predecessor] Euclideon was focused on holographic arcade games, featuring 3D game sprites floating in the air above diagonal screens built into large arcade machines.
Much like augmented reality, it’s impossible to photograph, so all of the images shown here are faked up. But in my experience, it’s a pretty honest representation of what you’re seeing when you pop the glasses on – other than the blue tint and glow, which the company says it adds to its promo images so they look more like the Star Wars holograms people seem to expect. …
It’s also built in some 4D-type effects, including chilly arctic breezes and even some animal smells… Being as how they’re completely computer-generated, Axiom is happy to play with scale here, making some small creatures much bigger for a unique perspective on them.
There’s also a hologram bridge – effectively a bridge over a large screen designed to make you feel like you’re walking over a 50-m (164-ft) drop into a canyon, or whatever else the programmers can dream up.
Beyond that, there’s some 11 different four-player holographic arcade games, inside another 5-m room, and some silk-screen, 2PAC-style projections in the restaurant area so folk can get their glasses off. Axiom prides itself on super-quick content generation, and says it’s been cranking out new experiences regularly.
One key disadvantage when it comes to doing multi-user experiences this way is that the displays can only handle so many different images at once. With each person needing a separate image for each eye, you’re limited to five people at a time in the rooms and tunnels, so it becomes a time-limited 15-minute experience in each and about 90 minutes all up.
Check out a [1:57 minute] video [in the original story or via YouTube]