We project high-speed (4,320 frames per second) video of different views of the face onto a spinning mirror. As the mirror spins, the different views are reflected to all different viewpoints around the display. In our teleconferencing system, seventy-two views of the face rendered by a PC with a modern graphics card are projected across 180 degrees field of view. By the time the mirror rotates to reflect images from one eye position to another, a different view of the scene is projected, so the result appears to be three-dimensional.

It's similar to the "Holograms" in the Star Wars movies in that it's a three-dimensional animated image of a person floating in space, and the displayed objects can have the general appearance of solidity rather than appearing as illuminated volumes of mist. However, no holographic film or traditional holography is involved to achieve the three-dimensional effect.

Yes, we'd just need to modify a three-chip DLP video projector to achieve high speed video projection instead of the single-chip projector we've used in our prototype. We could also use multiple single-chip projectors to achieve the effect. Or, as in the previous iteration, we achieved color with a multicolored display surface.

No, our system produces a real 3D image you can actually see whereas CNN's "hologram" was just a visual effect. To the home viewer, CNN's anchor Wolf Blitzer appeared to be looking at three-dimensional images of guests Jessica Yellin and Will.i.am, but this was a video overlay effect done for the home audience with no actual 3D display technology involved. In CNN's studio, Blitzer was actually staring across empty space toward a standard 2D flat panel television.

It's a steep tent shape formed by two panels of 8-by-10 inch brushed aluminum - the same material found on many kitchen appliances. We use this material since it is inexpensive and spreads light vertically but not horizontally, which allows people of any height to see the image formed on the display. It rotates fifteen times per second, reflecting thirty frames per second of 3D video from the two sides of the tent.

Yes, though to display a person life size we would need a larger spinning mirror to project onto. At the end of our first 3D Display project video, we showed a five-inch-tall 3D image of Bruce (one of our group's researchers) realistically running in place.

We are hoping to better recreate the natural, rich communication that people experience in person-to-person conversations, especially the effects of gaze, attention, and eye contact between a speaker and one or more other people. These effects are not reproduced in conventional 2D videoconferences: if the speaker looks at the camera, they appear to be looking at everyone; if they look away, they are looking at no one. With our system, the speaker can look at any of the people he or she is speaking to, and all participants see a natural view of the speaker.