The Aerial Burton display isn’t currently capable of creating detailed images like you’d see on a screen projector, but it’s still a big leap when you consider there’s nothing up there off which to bounce light. That’s really the basis of most projection technologies — the light reflects off something to your eyes. The aerial display shown here uses lasers to ionize molecules in the air, so the source of thelight is actually floating in mid-air where you see it.

The images are produced by a 1kHz infrared pulse laser, which is directed into a 3D scanner. This apparatus reflects the pulses up into the air while focusing them on pre-defined points. By ionizing molecules in very localized areas, the device is essentially producing pockets of plasma that give off energy as photons. The flashes of light are short-lived, so the system has to constantly pulse new beams to keep the image alive.

The next step is to increase the resolution of the images. Right now it can be a little hard to tell what each image is as it’s rotating around. This is more of a concern with busy backgrounds behind it. There are a few demos of this same technology in water, and the overall quality of the image is much higher. Air is obviously much less dense, so there may be fundamental limits to this kind of pulsed plasma laser tech.

The designers believe the Aerial Burton display could be used in emergency situations to help people find evacuation routes and emergency supplies. It’s also portable and can be mounted in a car. You might not be able to render Princess Leia in full holographic detail, but a giant floating arrow that points to safety during an emergency seems doable.

Watch the video. URL: https://youtu.be/GNoOiXkXmYQ