Brooklyn, NY – Jan 6, 2021 – Today, Looking Glass Factory, the leaders in holographic light field display technology, announced a major breakthrough as part of its Looking Glass Portrait Kickstarter campaign: a new cloud-based service that allows anyone to transform any 2D photo into a 3D holographic image in seconds, no programming required. This new service will go live in the spring of 2021. If the campaign reaches $2.5M by Jan 14, all backers of the Looking Glass Portrait Kickstarter campaign will get their first 20 conversions for free. 

 

Image: Looking Glass Portrait

 

Behind the scenes, the 2D-to-3D transformation is accomplished through a proprietary machine-learning-based approach that can deduce a synthetic high-quality depth map from a 2D image. That depth information is then used to generate the dozens of perspectives necessary for a holographic image that can be displayed in a holographic display like Looking Glass Portrait.

 

Shawn Frayne, CEO of Looking Glass Factory, will be discussing this new development in an online event on Jan 7 at 9:00 AM PST.

 

Everyone has taken thousands of photos over the years  –– photos of birthday parties, of a child’s first steps, and of pets we love. Now, all of these memories can live again as more realistic three-dimensional holographic photos. It does not matter if the photos were originally captured by a point-and-shoot camera, an Android phone, or an iPhone –– any 2D photo will work. This includes:

 

 

“The idea that any 2D photo could be transformed into a holographic image is something that’s been discussed in research groups for years, but there’s never been a service that non-technical folks could use to actually access this sort of capability. That’s why I’m so excited about this announcement,” said Shawn Frayne, CEO of Looking Glass Factory. “Now extremely realistic holographic memories of all sorts can be created and enjoyed by more people than ever before, getting us one step closer to a world in which we’re creating in, communicating with, and reliving our memories through holograms.”

 

Users can upload the converted images to Looking Glass’s editing software, HoloPlay Studio, from which they can then be imported to Looking Glass Portrait. Looking Glass Portrait is not only the world’s most advanced holographic display, but it is also the most affordable and easy-to-use, making it ideal for anyone who wants to view, create, and experience true-to-life, 3D holographic images, video, and applications right on their own desk. It is designed for the millions of people who’ve yearned for a holographic future or who work or play in 3D in any way: photographers, filmmakers, Unity, and Unreal developers, 3D designers, early adopters, and those just starting to explore three-dimensional capture and creation.

 

Cost and Availability :

Looking Glass Portrait is currently available from the Looking Glass Kickstarter page here. The current price is $249, which will increase to $349 when the campaign ends on Jan 14, 2021.

 

This new service will go live in the spring of 2021, first on Looking Glass Factory’s website and then as a premium feature in the HoloPlay Studio software package used for editing holographic media for Looking Glass holographic displays. Additionally, if the Kickstarter campaign reaches  $2.5M by January 14, all backers of the Looking Glass Portrait Kickstarter campaign will get their first 20 conversions for free, with additional 2D to 3D conversions priced at $20 for 100 photos.                                        

 

For more information about this new service, join Shawn Frayne, CEO of Looking Glass Factory, in an exclusive online event on Jan 7 at 9AM PST. And learn more about Looking Glass Portrait, the first personal holographic display, at look.glass/portrait.

 

 

About Looking Glass Factory

 

Looking Glass Factory Inc, with headquarters in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and additional operations in Hong Kong, is the global leader in the field of holographic interfaces with the launch of their flagship Looking Glass product line. This unique combination of advanced hardware and software is based on the company’s patented light field technology that is now the most widely-adopted holographic display in history.  Today, the company serves the holographic needs of the 3D community of photographers, filmmakers, Unity and Unreal developers, 3D designers, and enterprises and is committed to building the headset-free hologram-powered future we were all promised in science fiction growing up. For more information, visit www.lookingglassfactory.com