NOVA, the world’s first full-color real 3D LED (light emitting diodes) screen, was developed at the occasion of the 150 year anniversary of ETH Zurich. It was conceived to visualize scientific data dynamically in three dimensions offering surround vision to its viewers. It can display 16 million colors at a refresh rate of 25 images per second. The NOVA 3D LED technology is protected by international patents.
NOVA 3D LED voxels (volumetric pixels) can be arranged in any volume and can be placed at any distance from each other horizontally and vertically in regular or irregular 3D grids. NOVA software allows displaying content originating from formats like .jpg, .eps, .obj, .mov in three dimensions throughout one single or multiple 3D NOVA structures.
NOVA was developed by ETH Zurich and realized with the support of private companies, institutions and foundations; an ETH spin-off company, horao, is further developing and marketing the product.
www.nova.ethz.ch, www.horao.biz, www.youtube.com/horaoclips, www.vimeo.com/babynova
Credits:
Project Managment and Content Creation: Martina Eberle
Lead Software Development: Simon Schubiger
Software Development: Nicolas Juillerat
Software Development and Content Creation: Christoph Stähli
Logistic and Hardware Development: Jörg Luggen
The NOVA prototype installed at Zurich’s main train station where 340’000 people pass by each day measures 5 x 5 x 1 meters and consists of 25’000 voxels. Visitors can interact with a touch screen at a local terminal which allows browsing, altering and creating content in real time. In the near future it will be also used for uploading and playing content from personal digital devices.
The mobile NOVA demo unit, called NOVA baby, frequently travels to exhibitions, conferences, fairs and festivals. It consists of 1000 regularly spaced voxels which are arranged in a cubic volume measuring 1 x 1 x 1 meters. The mobile NOVA unit has been successfully used in live set-ups responding to signals retrieved from sound, image or movement deployed as a VJ instrument.
NOVA is used for academic research in the area of human computer interaction for the development of 2D and 3D interfaces involving visual and haptic inputs and outputs. Furthermore the relationship between the senses in interaction with NOVA is explored towards the deployment as a commercial NOVA product involving all senses suitable for the use in lobbies and lounges and at events.