Looking Glass Factory – 3D and Holographic Displays Without Headsets
Looking Glass Factory is an American company developing 3D displays that allow users to view 3D content without the use of VR goggles, stereoscopic glasses, or eye tracking systems. The company has been operating since 2014 and focuses on two technology families: Light Field Displays (LFD), designed primarily for advanced 3D visualization, and the newer Hololuminescent™ Displays (HLD), aimed at presentations, digital signage, retail, and audiovisual content.
This distinction is important. Although Looking Glass uses the term "holographic display," the devices do not create a hologram freely floating in the space in front of the screen. In the case of a Light Field Display, the screen simultaneously generates multiple different image perspectives, allowing the viewer to perceive parallax and depth depending on the viewing position. HLD, on the other hand, uses a specific holographic space integrated into the panel, to which the displayed content is adapted.
Two Looking Glass Technologies
Light Field Display – Advanced Spatial Visualization
Light Field technology allows for the display of dozens of different views of the same scene simultaneously. The latest Looking Glass devices can generate up to 100 perspectives, allowing a person moving in front of the screen to see an object from a different angle. Multiple people can also view the same scene simultaneously. Eye tracking is not required – the system does not need to know the user's eye position.
Light Field Display is a particularly interesting solution for applications where the actual geometry of a 3D model is important: product design, CAD, engineering, medicine, data visualization, scientific research, GIS, education, and the presentation of digital reconstructions of historical monuments. The manufacturer cites CAD models, medical scans, terrain maps, and data visualization as typical applications of this technology.
Hololuminescent™ Display – a spatial effect from a simpler material
Hololuminescent™ Display (HLD) is a newer Looking Glass architecture. Unlike Light Field Display, it does not require the generation of dozens of independent perspectives of a full 3D scene.
The screen's design incorporates a defined holographic space, and the video material is prepared to take advantage of its depth. This allows for the spatial presence of a character, product, or object to be achieved with a much simpler workflow than with traditional light-field installations.
HLD is therefore primarily intended for:
digital signage, stores and showrooms, trade shows, museums, events, demonstration centers, product presentations, and location-based entertainment installations.
Current Looking Glass Models
The manufacturer's current offerings include three Light Field Display models, three professional HLD models, and the consumer musubi™.
Looking Glass Go
Looking Glass Go is the company's smallest and most portable Light Field model. It has a 6-inch screen, 1440 × 2560 pixel resolution, a 60 Hz refresh rate, and generates up to 100 views within an optimal viewing angle of approximately 58°. The device weighs approximately 257 g and has approximately 22 GB of visible internal memory.
Go can operate in both desktop and standalone mode. The manufacturer anticipates compatibility with Windows computers, Macs, and Apple devices. This is an interesting solution for prototyping 3D applications, visualizing models, presenting Gaussian Splats and NeRF, creating interactive demonstrations, and presenting 3D images and materials.
Key specifications of Looking Glass Go:
— Screen: 6"
— Resolution: 1440 × 2560 px
— Refresh rate: 60 Hz
— Color depth: 8-bit / 16.7 million colors
— Number of views: up to 100
— Optimal viewing angle: 58°
— Aspect ratio: 9:16
— User memory: approximately 22 GB
— Weight: approximately 257 g
— Power supply: USB, 5 V / 3 A
— Can be operated without a computer
— Supports PC, Mac, and iOS devices.
Looking Glass 16" Light Field Display
The Looking Glass 16" model is designed primarily for professional use. It utilizes a 3840 x 2160 resolution panel operating at 60 Hz. The manufacturer claims a range of approximately 45–100 views and the ability for multiple people to view the scene collaboratively.
The screen is available in both landscape and portrait orientations. The current 16" version utilizes an aluminum housing and anti-reflective glass, among other features. The display can communicate via HDMI and USB-C.
The 16" model is ideal for applications such as research labs, design studios, and for presenting engineering models, product visualizations, scientific data, and medical materials.
Looking Glass 27" Light Field Display
The Looking Glass 27" increases the presentation area and is primarily intended for collaborative viewing of large spatial models.
The most important parameter is the resolution of 5120 × 2880 px – 5K, at a frequency of 60 Hz. The display generates up to 100 image perspectives within an optimal area of approximately 53°. The manufacturer also claims the ability to achieve up to 9 inches of virtual image depth.
The 27" can be used in applications such as:
industrial design, R&D centers, education, data visualization, museums, showrooms, interactive installations, and product presentations.
Unlike VR goggles, multiple people can view the model simultaneously, which is crucial during design meetings, teaching sessions, or client presentations.
Hololuminescent™ Displays HLD 16", 27", and 86"
The HLD family is focused more on visual impact and ease of implementation than on advanced analysis of full 3D models.
The HLD 16" has a 15.6" screen, Full HD resolution, and a design approximately 1.7 cm thick.
The HLD 27" offers a 27-inch 4K UHD panel and is approximately 2.2 cm thick.
The largest HLD 86" has an 86" diagonal, 4K UHD resolution, and is approximately 5 cm thick. It is designed for large display installations where a character or product is to be presented at near-life-scale.
A significant advantage of the HLD is the ability to leverage much more traditional video production workflows. This means fewer demands on the content team than with an advanced, real-time rendered light-field application.
musubi™ – a holographic photo and video frame
An interesting extension of Looking Glass's offering is the musubi™, introduced in 2026. This consumer device utilizes the same HLD technology family used in larger professional displays.
The frame has a 7-inch diagonal screen, a 9:16 aspect ratio, and approximately 2 inches of claimed spatial depth. It has 4 GB of available memory, which, according to the manufacturer, is enough for approximately 1,000 prepared videos. The integrated 2,000 mAh battery allows for a maximum of about three hours of operation, and the device also has a 5W speaker.
The method of preparing the videos is particularly interesting. The desktop software can use Gaussian Splatting to reconstruct the spatial dimensions of photos and short videos. Processing is performed locally on a Mac or PC – according to the manufacturer, the videos do not need to be sent to the cloud or external AI services.
Looking Glass Software
One of the strengths of the Looking Glass ecosystem is its extensive programming resources. The developer offers tools for both those who simply want to quickly open models and teams building their own 3D applications.
The core component is the Looking Glass Bridge – a communication layer and runtime needed by many applications and development tools.
Available tools include Looking Glass Studio, a Model Viewer, a Unity plugin, an Unreal Engine plugin, a Blender add-on, the WebXR library, and the Bridge SDK. The Model Viewer supports formats such as glTF, FBX, OBJ, STEP, STL, and PLY.
Unity allows you to create interactive applications that run on Windows, macOS, and select iOS devices. The current Unity Plugin 4 line utilizes Unity 6 and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), and the developer claims significant improvements in rendering performance over the previous generation of the plugin.
Using an iPhone or iPad as a control unit for selected displays is also available. Looking Glass lists the iPhone 15/16 Pro and Pro Max, as well as the iPad Pro with the M4 chip, as supported devices for its iOS environment.
Key Advantages of Looking Glass
The technology's biggest advantage is the absence of VR/AR headsets. The user simply looks at the screen, and multiple people can simultaneously observe a spatial object. For educational, presentation, or industrial applications, this removes one of the biggest barriers to traditional VR.
A second advantage is the natural motion parallax in Light Field displays. The observer can move their head or change position and see the object from a different perspective, instead of just viewing a flat stereoscopic image.
Support for popular 3D tools is also important. Integration with Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender, and web technologies allows you to leverage existing models and designs instead of creating an entire environment from scratch.
For less technical users, the manufacturer offers Studio and Model Viewer, allowing you to present finished models without having to develop your own software.
Where can Looking Glass be used?
The technology is particularly interesting wherever a 2D screen does not adequately demonstrate the spatial relationships of an object, and wearing VR goggles would be inconvenient.
Medicine and Life Sciences – visualization of anatomy, image data, and biological structures.
Engineering and CAD – presentation of parts, prototypes, structures, and assemblies before a physical prototype is created.
GIS and Geoinformation – spatial representation of terrain, infrastructure, and geographic data. Looking Glass offers materials demonstrating integration with ArcGIS, among other things.
Education and Training – collaborative viewing of models by a group of students without the need for each person to wear a headset.
Museums and Culture – digital reconstructions of exhibits, artifacts, and historical sites.
Retail and Marketing – presentation of products, configurators, characters, and interactive campaigns.
R&D and Data Visualization – presentation of data with a natural three-dimensional structure.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
Looking Glass does not replace VR headsets in all applications. The user still observes the scene through a limited screen area and a specific range of viewing angles. It is not a complete, immersive virtual environment.
Light Field Display also requires significantly higher computational demands than a traditional monitor, as the system must generate multiple perspectives of the same scene. Particularly complex real-time projects may require a powerful graphics card. For example, for the current Unreal plugin, the manufacturer recommends an RTX 3080 or a more powerful GPU, while also noting the performance limitations of real-time rendering in this environment.
It's also important to distinguish between HLD and LFD. HLD is easier to implement, but it doesn't offer the same type of full multi-perspective 3D visualization as Light Field Display. For presenting people, figures, or products, it may be a better and more affordable solution, while for precise viewing of CAD models or spatial data, LFD remains the more appropriate choice. The manufacturer itself also makes this distinction.
Summary
Looking Glass Factory currently offers one of the most interesting 3D display ecosystems without the use of glasses. Its greatest value lies not in the eye-catching term "hologram" itself, but rather in the ability for multiple people to view 3D content collaboratively without additional user equipment.
For engineering, scientific, medical, research, and advanced 3D visualization applications, the Light Field Display Go line, 16" and 27" models, is particularly interesting. For retail, digital signage, trade shows, or character and product presentations, a much simpler solution may be the Hololuminescent™ Display family – 16", 27", and 86".
Thanks to support for Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender, WebXR, common 3D model formats, and Looking Glass's own tools, this solution is not just an eye-catching demo screen but can also be a component of a professional design, research, or presentation process.
28.08.2026
Source: Looking Glass Factory