Imagine an air-traffic controller keeping tabs on planes using fully three-dimensional models of radar-tracked craft. Or a team of surgeons planning a tumor removal with the aid of volumetrically displayed MRI data.
"We don't have to be sitting on each other's laps to see the same features, either," says Elizabeth Downing of her invention. Using intersecting infrared lasers and a Pentium PC, Downing's technique projects 3-D color objects inside a 1-inch-square fluorescent-glass cube.
3D Technology Laboratories, Downing's five-person company, is working on a larger, next-generation cube. Her voxel victory was facilitated by nine years' worth of grants and lasers donated during her Stanford grad school days, but if you follow the money, you end up in a garbage can.
"I have a long history of dumpster diving," Downing says. "Lenses, power supplies – the best trash in the world comes from high-tech companies."
This article originally appeared in the November issue of Wired magazine.
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