Introducing The Looking Glass: A New, Interactive Holographic Display
For the first time ever, 3D creators will be able to see their work come to life in the real world — without headgear— and share their creations with other people.
The Looking Glass holographic display is an interactive, digital canvas for 3D creators.
We are beginning to take pre-orders for The Looking Glass today. Order yours here.
Announcement Details
- Availability — Available for pre-order starting on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 at 10am ET/7am PT.
- Size(s) — Two sizes: the Standard Looking Glass (8.9 in.) and the Large Looking Glass (15.6 in.)
- Pricing — The standard Looking Glass will have a list price of $600 but during the pre-order window early backers can get it up to 33% off — starting at $399. The large Looking Glass will have a list price of $3,000, but during the pre-order window early backers can get it up to 33% off — starting at $1,999.
- Where to order — https://kck.st/2LiDliY
- When it will ship — 100 units will ship early starting September 2018; regular shipment will go out in December 2018.
- Skills required — You need to be able to create, import or download 3D content.
- To get your creations into The Looking Glass — Upload any .OBJ or .gLTF file into our Model Importer or use our Unity plugin to view .fbx animations, volumetric video capture, .STL files, etc. Or explore our App Library to see more content. Coming soon: direct ports from Maya, Blender, Rhino, Tinkercad, Solidworks and ZBrush.
- To interact with The Looking Glass — Use accessories such as Leap Motion, game controllers, Joy-Con controllers or Arduinos.
Media assets for download
All assets for launch (including full product specs, GIFs and product stills) can be found here.
Why Now
There are tens of millions of 3D creators all around the world. They are animators, illustrators, video game designers, architects, builders, students, visual effects masters, interior designers, engineers, digital fabricators and product visionaries.
Right now, their work and play is trapped inside a 2D screen. The tech industry’s best attempt at showing their creations in 3D? Clunky headgear that makes it super awkward to share with other people.
At Looking Glass Factory, we believe what people really want is something that helps them connect with other people and makes it possible to share 3D content and experiences.
So we made a new kind of display — a proprietary system that blends lightfield and volumetric display technologies.
The Looking Glass is built by and for people who want to make, share and interact with 3D creations, content and experiences.
Whatever you put inside your Looking Glass — an animated character, an architectural drawing, a futuristic car — will come to life. It can sing, dance, swim, wiggle and break. You can tickle it and make it laugh. You can squish it, spin it or smash it to bits.
Who Is This For?
The large and fast-growing community of 3D creators have been looking for something like this for a long time.
Eventually, we believe The Looking Glass will become an everyday display for everything from gaming and movies to communication. Imagine how cool it will be to someday record and share your memories, experiences and time with friends and family.
In the near term, we see a handful of specific early adopter customers, including:
- 3D animators, illustrators and game developers. They are looking for a way to show their characters and scenes and get feedback. They also want to test how their character or asset behaves when it moves. If they have a favorite character, they may want it to live on their desk. If they have more than one, maybe they cycle them throughout the day.
- Builders, contractors and architects. Right now they spend tens of thousands of dollars on paper models. They could save a lot by showing specific builds, floor plans and designs to their clients and/or buyers inside a Looking Glass. The system allows them to change, manipulate and re-engineer designs in real time.
- Product/industrial designers, inventors and engineers. 3D product designers want to get an advanced look at how their products will look and feel. Inventors and engineers use 3D printing a lot during the iteration phase. Having a three-dimensional display that can change specs in real-time will save time and money.
- Schools. Many schools provide STEAM curriculum to students, such as robotics, computer science, and engineering. Many of them design in 3D and use 3D printers, but those machines breakdown fairly frequently and cost money to maintain. VR headgear doesn’t scale when you need to teach a classroom of 30 kids.
- Retailers. As real estate prices are beginning to rise, brands often can’t carry a full inventory for display. The Looking Glass offers an innovative way for to showcase products, as well as additional inventory and customizations.
- Museums. Budgetary restrictions and falling visitor attendance are putting pressure on curators to come up with new ways to get the community engaged.
How the Looking Glass Works
The Looking Glass is a unique combination of lightfield and volumetric display technologies within a single three-dimensional display system that updates at up to 60fps.
It generates 45 distinct views of a three-dimensional scene so that multiple people standing around a Looking Glass can see different parts of the scene in the real world.
As you move around the Looking Glass, your eyes are exposed to different sets of 3D information, creating a life-like, 3D experience for groups of people.
VR headsets produce just two 3D views of a scene. To let a group of people see that same scene without headgear, the Looking Glass generates 45 views of that 3D scene simultaneously, no headgear required.
Why We Made The Looking Glass
Instead of the isolated dystopian future we keep hearing about, we want to help create a more optimistic future in which human connections are made stronger through technology.
While AR and VR games are cool, we don’t want to spend our whole lives immersed in another world. Instead, we wanted to create a new kind of 3D world: one you can share and experience with your friends, colleagues, clients and fans.
Our Story
Shawn Frayne has been obsessed with holograms ever since he saw a hologram shark try to swallow Marty McFly outside the Holomax theatre in Back to the Future II. In high school, Shawn built his own laser-based holographic images in his bedroom, complete with 2,000 pounds of sand (first hologram: a pewter Mickey Mouse). Ever since, he’s been trying to build something that feels more alive than conventional holograms — something closer to the full-color, moving holograms in movies like Minority Report and Star Wars. He co-founded Looking Glass Factory with his friend Alex Hornstein in 2014. Looking Glass has released multiple products, including the L3D Cube, Volume and HoloPlayer One.
About Looking Glass Factory
Looking Glass Factory is a maker of holographic displays for the future, including The Looking Glass, an interactive, holographic digital canvas for 3D creators. Founded in 2014 by Shawn Frayne and Alex Hornstein, the company is based inside a restored glass factory in Brooklyn, New York, and in Hong Kong. Looking Glass Factory is backed by Foundry Group, Uncork Capital, SOSV and Lux Capital. Pre-order The Looking Glass on lookingglassfactory.com or follow us @LKGGlass.
We’ve been working on The Looking Glass for years and we’re beyond excited to share it with the world. We can’t wait to see what you make with it. Happy creating!
— The Looking Glass Factory Team
