Science and Health

Holograms deliver moving 3-D

By Anne Eisenberg (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-19 08:48

When the famous hologram of Princess Leia says, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," in the movie "Star Wars," it's science fiction. Now you can watch actual moving holograms that are filmed in one spot and then projected in another spot.

"The hologram is about the size and resolution of Princess Leia in the movie," said Nasser Peyghambarian, an optical scientist at the University of Arizona and leader of a team that recently demonstrated the technology.

The holograms aren't as speedy as those in Hollywood. The display changes only every two seconds. But these holograms are actually happening and in close to real time: a fellow is filmed in one room, the data is sent via ethernet to another room, laser beams go to work, and voilà: a holographic telepresence appears and moves, in apparently solid detail.

Innovative research in holography is going on at labs and companies worldwide, said Lisa Dhar, a senior technology manager at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who is an expert in holographic materials.

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We may need to wait a decade before watching holographic movies at home. But even before the technology is practical for games and entertainment, it promises applications in advertising, the military, architecture and engineering.

Zebra Imaging in Austin, Texas, sells holographic prints that at first glance look much like ordinary pieces of plastic about a meter long and half as wide - until an LED flashlight is shined at them.

Then the patterns, burned into the plastic with high-power laser beams, come to life, said Al Wargo, the chief executive. Out of the surface springs a model of a complicated building.

No special eyewear is required to view the holographic prints, which typically cost $1,000 to $3,000 each. Zebra's main customer has been the United States Defense Department, for whom Zebra renders holographic displays of, for example, battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FMC Technologies in Houston says holograms are handy substitutes when the company wants to demonstrate its 22-metric-tons of equipment at trade shows.

"The holograms are a lot lighter," said Adam Andrich, global marketing manager for fluid control.

Holographic prints may also find use among architects and engineers. They are helpful in 3-D computer modeling to plan before construction, and an inexpensive alternative to often fragile physical models of wood or polystyrene, says Jared Smith, a senior vice president at Parsons Brinckerhoff in Seattle, an engineering, planning and architecture firm.

At the University of Arizona, Dr. Peyghambarian created his displays using 16 cameras. Software rendered the images in holographic pixels that laser beams recorded on a novel plastic that can be erased and rewritten.

Keren Bergman, a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University in New York, is working on ways to send holograms from Arizona to New York on the Internet.

One day, she may summon people to her lab by holographic telepresence, just as Alexander Graham Bell once summoned Thomas Watson ("Come here!") with a historic telephone call.

The New York Times