The hologram is a photographic recording of a light field, which is used to display a fully three-dimensional image of the holographed subject, and can be viewed without the aid of special glasses or other intermediate optics. The hologram itself is not an image. It is an encoding of the light field as an interference pattern of seemingly random variations in the opacity, density, or surface profile of the photographic medium. When suitably illuminated, the interference pattern diffracts the light into a reproduction of the original light field and the objects that were in it appear to still be there, exhibiting visual depth cues such as parallax and perspective that change realistically with any change in the relative position of the observer. Thanks to newly developed devices (e.g. spatial light modulators) and methods (e.g. hogel based holograms) more and more realistic holograms can be made.

The aim of the work is to contribute to the progression of ultra-realistic holography by elaborating testing methods and participating in the development of different optical subsystems for a holographic printing machine which is a subject of a four years long grant.

Tasks and problems that have to be solved:

• Testing and comparison of the holographic recording materials (photopolymers, silver-halide films, etc.)
• Help determine the proper lasers for the available holographic films and plates
• Participate in the development of beam shaping optical systems for the selected lasers
• Aid in the conversion of 3D databases, rendering and scanning
• Contribute to develop monochrome and color data modules for the holographic printing machine
• Examination of the stability, noise & validity of the reconstructed horizontal and full parallax 3D presentation of digital holograms