In the middle of a dark­ened room, a new neigh­bor­hood is rising up out of a table. Four people with futur­istic eyeglasses are bending over it, pointing to details, zooming into the view, rotating it. The scene looks like some­thing out of a science fiction movie.  

But it is reality. The holo­gram table by Euclideon from Bris­bane makes it come true. “We had decided to realize this vision to allow people to expe­ri­ence large models or even games – in a way that is more impres­sive than virtual reality and more immer­sive than 3D tele­vi­sion,” says Louis Valenti, Marketing Manager at Euclideon.

More conve­nient than virtual reality

The result is the first 3D table where multiple users can show each other their visions simul­ta­ne­ously without having to wear huge virtual reality devices on their heads. Because the magni­tude is in the table. The high-tech piece of furni­ture measures 210 x 210 x 61.5 centime­ters and the screen measures 120 x 120 centime­ters. It projects 3D models in various formats up to 60 centime­ters in height and can create a visual depth of one meter down.  

“Dust and poor air quality cloud the projec­tors. Without clean air, the quality of the image would be greatly reduced.”

Louis Valenti, Marketing Manager at Euclideon

Archi­tec­tural designs, land­scapes, entire coun­tries, indi­vidual blades of grass: Every­thing takes on real­istic forms and liter­ally puts what has been conceived in tangible prox­imity. Users can pick up indi­vidual objects and move them across the table with the asso­ci­ated control bar.

Ideal air filter system for holo­grams

But all this works only with particle-free air, as Valenti explains: “Dust and poor air quality cloud the projec­tors. Without clean air, the quality of the image would be greatly reduced.” So Euclideon relies on an air filter system from the Swedish company Elfi.  That’s what it’s all about: The Elfi air filter system is extremely energy effi­cient – due to the design, of course. But an air purifi­ca­tion system is only as good as the fans working in there.

Centrifugal fans give every­thing

Elfi uses DC centrifugal fans with speed regu­la­tion from ebm-papst for its systems. They draw in the air from the sides of the table through the filter and fill the entire inte­rior of the table with clean air – they can do 300 cubic meters in an hour and run perma­nently at maximum power because they are so energy effi­cient and so quiet.  

The fact that the holo­gram table does not produce any annoying sounds is impor­tant in appli­ca­tions in a working envi­ron­ment. Euclideon designed the table primarily for such an envi­ron­ment. But the Australian 3D vision­aries assume that holo­gram tech­nology will also be used in the private sector in the future. “Ten, twenty years ago, people still consid­ered touch screens to be super futur­istic. Today we have them every­where. It will be similar with holo­gram tech­nology,” says Valenti. In any case, the air is pure.