Suspended LED Light Strings Create Cubic 3D Displays

June 1, 2023 by Dave Haynes

A Hong Kong-based company has adapted conventional LED technology to create a hardware and software system that produces large-format volumetric displays that genuinely have three dimensions – albeit at very low resolutions.

LedPulse’s core offer is a product based around a series of suspended LED light strings that can be as tall as five meters, with a pixel pitch of 25mm.

The results are ghostly animations that have holographic depth – the sort of output that tilts much more to ambience and experience than to effective communications.

For example, Ernst & Young commissioned a temporary “cubic 3D” display and supporting creative for a convention held at a Palm Springs hotel last fall.

A record and historical compression of LED Neurons. 324.00 particles of light in a structure of 4,5 meters wide X 3 meters deep X 3 meters high rigged over the main lobby of the hotel. 54 modules and a total weight of 1500 Kilos. A challenge. an incredible technical achievement thanks to the coordination of LMG as the integrator. 

The company says it has “adapted the engineering and design of the best modular 2D LED technology and created an assembly system familiar to A/V integrators that meets professional standards. Any installation technician with average training will understand the assembly immediately.”

Most of the technologies being marketed these days as holograms or holographic displays are really just 2D visual tricks that are flat or have minimal depth. This set-up is as deep as it is wide, so the view changes as observers walk around it.

The trade-off, as you can see, is clarity. Those madly spinning LED rotor blade thingies and transparent LCD shower stall thingies aren’t holograms, but their visual outputs can do much more than art and basic branding.

There’s more than enough room for both – and a key is sorting out the objective and need, as opposed to how this sort of thing might be used and where it might go.

LED light strings and curtains have been around for years, but they’ve tended to be very low rez and don’t have sophisticated systems in behind them. Part of the deal with LedPulse is “fully automatic volumetric LED render engine” software, for example.

I would love to see one of these live. The company did private demos at last fall’s LDI trade show in Las Vegas. LDI is the sister show to DSE, so maybe they’d like to invite me in to the “whisper” room in December???

Here’s a demo video

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