During Coachella in 2012, a cultural icon was resurrected. Tupac Shakur, who had been dead for nearly 2 decades, was seen singing and dancing on stage.

This was done by projecting a 2-dimensional video onto a flat piece of glass.

But Dr. Roel Vertegaal of Queen’s University has his goals set one notch higher: true holograms. Holograms that you could walk all the way around and see a different part of it – just like you would if you walked around a person who was actually there.

This is done by using a ring of projectors on a human-sized cylindrical pod. The images that are projected are captured by cameras at various depths within the room.

Dr. Vertegaal believes this project, known as TeleHuman 2, could revolutionize communication. He says that so much of our communication is non-verbally expressed with our bodies. This silent form of communication is lost with mediums such as text, call, or even video conferencing to a large degree. These full-body holograms would solve this issue. This could revolutionize how business deal are made, how bosses communicate with their employees, or how family keeps in touch over long distances.

Will technology like this one day become commonplace in offices? How quickly will this future be here for us? Until it gets here, we can still marvel at a hologram of Tupac.

Eric Cawley is an occasional blogger for Gary Stringham & Associates. Gary provides consulting and expert witness services in embedded systems such as robotics. Feel free to contact Gary at 208-939-6984.