Turn iPhone bokeh images into amazing 3D holograms with Looking Glass Portrait

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Looking Glass Portrait is on Kickstarter now.
Looking Glass Portrait is a (relatively) affordable desktop hologram display.
Photo: Looking Glass Factory

An iPhone 3D portrait image is amazing to see, and it can be even more mind blowing as a hologram. That’s the promise of Looking Glass Portrait.

This is not a single-use hologram. Users can send their own 3D images to the 7.9-inch display.

“Looking Glass Portrait 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,” said Looking Glass Factory, the developer of the product.

Holograms can be seen without a headset. And they offer a 58 degree viewing angle. Multiple people can see the hologram at once.

All that’s needed to capture images is a phone that can take Portrait (bokeh) mode photos and a Mac or PC to transfer the images.

Looking Glass Factory points out that the iPhone 12 Pro using a combination of advanced machine learning techniques and a LiDAR scanner can capture the best depth photos yet. And the company offers a optional light field photo rail for taking 3D images from different perspectives.

The developer made a demo video to show off the hologram display.

Looking Glass Portrait already funded on Kickstarter

Looking Glass Portrait debuted Wednesday on the crowd-funding site Kickstarter. It reached its funding goal in 45 minutes.

Placing a pre-order on December 2 or December 3 gets the product for $199. These units will ship in March 2021. After that, the pre-order price goes up to $249, and units ship in April 2021. The regular cost of Looking Glass Portrait is $349.

Funding already passed $350,000, so a stretch goal has been added: an internal integrated Wi-Fi module in the hologram display. A later software update might enable users to send 3D images straight from their iPhone to the display.

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