I Build a REAL Holographic AI Assistant!

Vídeo em Inglês, publicado pelo canal DD ElectroTech.

About this content: The summary, key points and topics below are generated automatically from the video transcript. They reflect the content, opinions, claims and predictions presented in the video and do not represent a position, validation or fact-check by IA Dots.

Video summary

The video details a seven-month engineering project to build a custom holographic AI assistant named Project Nova, combining 3D printing, custom PCBs, an optical illusion setup, and face-tracking mechanics.

Key points

• The creator tested multiple internet methods for holograms, such as plastic pyramids and 3D-printed setups, before analyzing Razer's concept project Eva to understand the illusion.
• The final build utilizes a 5.5-inch OLED display combined with a two-way magic mirror inside a transparent cylinder to create the appearance of a character inside a tube.
• To solve the flat appearance from side angles, the team integrated a rotating base driven by a geared motor, a potentiometer for angle tracking, and an Orange Pi 4 SBC running face-tracking software.
• Three custom PCBs were designed using Altium Designer and manufactured by PCBWay to control LEDs, drive speakers and motors, and communicate with the onboard computer.
• The completed AI assistant, Project Nova, features custom 3D characters, an Android control app, voice commands, situational awareness, and a physical privacy slider for the camera and microphone.

Topics

Holographic AI assistant3D printingOptical illusionFace trackingCustom PCB designVoice commandsHardware engineering

Video transcript

Transcript from available captions; it may contain errors.

Hollywood showed us futuristic holographic AI assistants, but when you try to buy one, we get this, this, or even this. But none of them are holographic. So, we decided to build our own. And after 7 months [music] and hundreds of engineering challenges, we finally did it. The internet is full of hologram tutorials, and the most common one is very simple. All we need is a transparent sheet. Cut it into four pieces. Add them together. Put it on your phone and hologram is ready. But to see it clearly, [music] we need to turn off the light. It looks great. But the problem is if I want a full-size character, [music] this pyramid and the display has to become enormous. And I don't want my AI assistant living inside a plastic pyramid. >> Please let me out. >> She deserves better. So we designed and [music] 3D printed another popular and very simple method. This one looked much better. But the hologram only looks right from one particular angle. Move away from that angle and the magic is gone. Then we tried a lot of other methods we found on the internet but none of them gave us the result we are looking for. But luckily around the same time Razer showcased a concept project Eva and it looked surprisingly close to what we are trying to build. So we started trying to figure out how were they achieving an effect like this. Initially, we thought they might be using a transparent OLED, but then I noticed something unexpected. Look at the glowing back lid. That means it's an LCD, not an OLED, and it's not transparent either. If it were, we should be able to see the background through it like this. After watching those shots several times, I think I have figured it out. It's a combination. A character rendered on a black background, a reflective screen, transparent enclosure, and carefully controlled lighting. Our brain sees all those things together and decides, yeah, the tiny human definitely inside the tube. Now that I had a pretty good idea how the illusion worked and there is only one thing left to do. I took a 5.5 in OLED display instead of an LCD because it will give a completely black background. Then I took two-way magic mirror and attached it to the display. After covering the open areas, it become a mirror. Then I measured screw positions for mounting and designed a 3D model. And after printing it, I attached the display, ARGB LED strip and a half circle light pattern with a diffuser. Then I connected the display to my laptop via HDMI and finally enclosed everything in a transparent cylinder. Wow, this [music] actually worked. I hadn't seen Eva in person, but visually this already felt surprisingly close to what we had seen in those concept videos. It looks [music] amazing from front view. But sadly, as soon as you look it from an angle, the character starts to look completely flat. Some of the light pattern also disappears because of the change in reflection and the whole holographic transparent background illusion starts to fall apart. And this is where we came up with a completely different approach. What if a camera could track the viewer's face and position and use that information to rotate the entire display assembly so it's always facing the user? To test that idea, we designed a completely new base and added bearing to make the rotation smoother and then added a geared motor to drive the assembly. It worked, but it wasn't smooth enough. So, we redesigned it and added five bearings to [music] properly support the rotating platform. To know the exact angle of the display all the time, we connected a potentiometer to the rotating mechanism through a gear [music] and built a quick circuit on a breadboard to test the position testing [music] system. And thankfully, it worked. Next, we mounted the display onto the platform and added a USB camera. Now, for face tracking and [music] other computing, we need a powerful computer, but small enough to fit inside. So we used an orange by4 SBC. Once everything was connected, we started testing it with our developed face tracking application. We started collecting the data of face position, display angle and motor positions in real time. But initially the face position and display angle wasn't matching at all. After a lot of testing and fine-tuning, we finally got the tracking to work properly. But there was another problem. The display was rotating even with tiny [music] movements and honestly that was pretty annoying and the character still didn't feel alive. Since fixing those software bugs was taking longer than expected, we decided to work on the electronics in parallel. So I opened ALTM develop and recreated our tested circuit. Added a few extra features we needed for the final version. Once the schematic was ready, I converted it into a PCB and roughly arranged the components. But here is the part I really love about LTM develop. I could switch to 3D view, bring in our enclosure base and see exactly how the PCB would fit inside. I could even move components in 3D view. And the best part is the PCB layout would update automatically. That made the whole process so much easier. If you want to try Altem Develop yourself, I have left my link in the description where you can get a 30 days free trial. In the end, we designed three custom PCBs. Two for addressable LEDs and another for controlling the LEDs, driving the speaker and motor, and communicating with the onboard computer to maintain the display angle. And with those three designs ready, we headed over to PCB way, uploaded all three Gerbo files, selected the color, thickness, and surface finish, and place the order. Since the PCBs would take a few days to arrive, we used that time to work on the final design. We printed the parts one by one, [music] tested them, made a few changes, and after a lot of trial and [music] error, we finally got the design right. [music] And just in time, our PCBs arrived from PCB way. I have been using PCB waste for almost a decade and their consistent quality and fast prototyping have been really helpful for project like this. I will leave a link in the description if you want to check them out. Now we finally have everything ready which means it's time to assemble it. Hey, guys. Finally, after almost 7 months, the project is officially finished. Meet Project Nova. [music] [music] It took this long because beside all the hardware, we spend a huge amount of time developing the software. We built our own AI agent and the entire interface from scratch. We also created an Android app to manually control Nova. From the app, we can change the character. And by the way, all of those 3D characters were designed by us. We added a bunch of movements, emotes, and actions, which can also be triggered manually from the app. We can also turn face and hand tracking on and off and manually adjust the light using the app. And of course, all of those functions can also be controlled with voice command. Hanover, follow me. >> [music] >> And the tracking is pretty much perfect now. But what about that annoying small movement problem that we previously faced? We fixed that too. When I'm sitting close to Nova, the display doesn't rotate. The character simply changes his body posture to face me. And when I move farther away, the tracking mechanism activates and follows me. [music] And since Nova has eyes, so I can actually ask her. Hey Nova. >> Hey Debashish. How can I help you? >> How am I looking today? >> You're looking sharp in that black t-shirt. And I like the glasses. Everything okay? >> What is this device? >> Oh, that's a digital multimeter. Looks like the brand is Theto. Are you working on some electronics or testing some batteries? Nova can do more than just basic answering question. She can actually understand the situation around me. Nova, the ambient looks bit dark. >> Okay. Increasing the office main light brightness to full. >> That's quite fast. >> I'm feeling bit warmer. >> Reducing the AC temperature. Anything else you need? >> And now comes to my favorite part. I can ask her to play any music I want. Hey Nova, play. I will be okay by Dana Smith. >> Playing I'll be okay by Dana Smith on YouTube music. Anything else you need? >> Waking [singing] up feeling [music] [clears throat] stop. >> The sound quality is pretty good. And also with voice command, I can change the track and also increase or decrease the volume or I can also use the back volume knob. Since the camera is designed to be active all the time, [music] so we added a privacy slider switch, it physically cut the power to the camera and the microphone. >> Hey DD. >> Yes. >> Did you finally remember your YouTube password?

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Assuntos: Agentes de IA, Assistente pessoal. Publicado no YouTube em 2026-10-30.

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