Maybe I'm a purist, but I used to make holograms, and despite what Microsoft claims in their marketing, that headset has nothing to do with holography. There are lots of different ways of creating 3D illusions, but not all of them can be called holograms. Here's an article in Wikipedia that defines them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography

This does look like an interesting advance in technology, though, and the Nvidia team does seem to have solved some tricky problems in constructing near-eye light field stereoscopic displays. Nowhere in their paper, though: https://research.nvidia.com/sites/de...DIA-NELD_0.pdf do they claim that this has anything to do with holography; Microsoft's marketing team seems to have come up with those bogus claims.

That said, it might be nice to use one of these devices to better visualize a 3D model, as one works with it. In combination with haptic feedback it would get closer to the experience of working on real 3D models with real tools. I agree that using ones finger instead of a stylus would be nice, but we're not there yet. Fortunately the stylus-based haptic tools have dropped in price recently, so more of us can experience touch-feedback in 3D modeling. The latest version of the Touch arm lists for $599 (the system with software costs more) and we sell it for a little less than list price.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com