Imperial College London To Use Holographic Technology

Overseas-based guest speakers to give lectures to Imperial College London students using hologram-like technology.

21:16 08 November 2018

Imperial College London will be using a technology to enable overseas-based lecturers appear as hologram-like apparitions during university classes.

 

Although the same technology has been used to animate images of celebrities in the past, it is believed that this will be the first time that it would be used by an academic body.

 

Imperial says the technology would be used initially for its Business School’s activities but says it could eventually become common.

 

Dr David Lefevre, director of Imperial's Edtech Lab, said: "The alternative is to use video-conferencing software but we believe these holograms have a much greater sense of presence,"

 

"The lecturers have a high-definition monitor in front of them which is calibrated so they can point at people and look them in the eye. They can really interact."

 

Explaining how the technology works, Dr Lefevre said: “You project upon a glass screen, and a backdrop behind it uses software to give it an illusion of depth.

 

"It runs at the low thousands each time, so for the first time universities can afford it."

 

"The lecturers have a high-definition monitor in front of them which is calibrated so they can point at people and look them in the eye. They can really interact."