HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from I could hardly believe my eyes! - Looking Glass Holographic Monitor Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

I could hardly believe my eyes! - Looking Glass Holographic Monitor

32 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this demo3 months2020–2024 score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as a reasonably detailed overview of Looking Glass tech, including a segment showing the pixel mapping behind the 3D effect.

Linus Tech Tips reviews the Looking Glass 8K holographic display, a glasses-free 3D monitor. The video shows the display in action and explains how it works.

“Linus Tech Tips covered them before that gives a pretty good overview” (HN, 2021)

3 recommendations · 5 citations · 1 critical · Demos · partly dated

9 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@icegreentea2 Apr 2021 Recommends
on HN thread This is what Doom looks like on a holographic display
Like other people have said, this looks like a Looking Glass dev unit or something. And here's a Linus Tech Tips video of it: [this video] They have some good footage (though obviously it's setup as a hype reel too). Edit: Skip to follow for "beauty shots": 4:45 and 8:50. 6:12 for funky shot of the 'flattened' image to give you a sense of what 'trick' they're playing
Good footage of the display with beauty shots and the flattened image.
@cfjgvjh Jul 2021 Recommends
on HN thread High-resolution holographic interface [video]
Linus Tech Tips covered them before that gives a pretty good overview [0]. It's a really cool tech and I hope it becomes more affordable in the future. I'd imagine actually feeling like a person is physically present will make Zoom meetings and such a lot less boring. [0] [this video]
Pretty good overview of Looking Glass displays.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@robocat May 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Looking Glass starts shipping its 8K holographic display
(Edited) The frog was on the low-res developer device. The much larger “8k” version introduced half way through [this video] has some good tech detail, with the raw pixel mapping shown at 6:30. Calcs seem about right since raw pixel count was stated as 43 million, although it was implied elsewhere they split RGB sub pixels too (which sounds wrong I admit), so maybe 43 million divided by 15? Our eyes are more sensitive to luminance than colour, so maybe they did something there (however, not that I could see from the raw pixel mapping at 6:30).
Has good tech detail and raw pixel mapping at 6:30.
@robocat May 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Looking Glass starts shipping its 8K holographic display
That’s wrong: technically it is nothing like the vertical grated sheet you see on cheap 3D posters etc. At 6 min 30 in [this video] they show the pixel sub mapping - and it isn’t just vertical bars. Edit: If they used a vertical grated sheet, there should be vertical lines at high contrast edges at a 45 pixel pitch. look at the green book at 6:22 and close-up at 6:27, and there seems to be vertical smear (not just what you might expect from horizontal smear). Example of a 3D lenticular print without the lenses to compare against: [link] from [link]
Shows sub-pixel mapping at 6:30 refuting the simple lenticular claim.
@justinclift Feb 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Lenovo's concept laptop is real, transparent, and ready to impress
Looks like a useful step towards 3D displays. By stacking a bunch of these transparent panels on top of each other, you could display 3D objects without needing 3D glasses: ----o----- Layer1 ---o-o---- Layer2 ---o-o---- Layer3 ----o----- Layer4 (etc) The depth resolution would be kind of crap, but there'd probably still be uses for it. Maybe layers wrapped as cylinders? Pretty sure there's an existing crowd trying something like this a few years ago: [this video] They're taking a different approach, though using a stack of panels too. --- That crowd is still around: [link]
@fxtentacle May 2020 Pushes back
on HN thread Looking Glass starts shipping its 8K holographic display
I believe they are shy to show it in high-quality video because the effective resolution is <900px. See my comment below for the math. Even in that TechCrunch gif, I believe I can already see pixel borders on the specular shading of the top part of the h. For an even clearer example, see the frog in full-screen at 3:31 here: [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close