I remember Hollograms coming into fashion about 15-20 years ago. A few years later their was a development of colorized hollographs but since then nothing particularly new seems to have come to market.
Has research into hollography hit some sort of theoretical brick wall? or else what new capabilities are being researched/developped?
The difference between a hologram (from holo meaning “whole”) and a photograph is that both intensity and phase are recorded, thus providing 3-D depth information.
This phase information is encoded in the tiny ripples of adjacent fringes incident on the recording medium. Unfortunately, these fringes are of the order of a wavelength of light apart (and any movement of more than a quarter of a wavelength during exposure will destroy the image), which only photographic plate can resolve as of yet.
Should the pixels of digital cameras or TV’s ever become as small as the grains of ultra-slow film, one might possibly retain phase information in this way. However even then the fringes must effectively be illuminated by laser light at the correct angle. (Holograms visible in white light have fringes right through the “depth” of the emulsion - I don’t know how one could ever do this electronically!)
I wonder if the phase information could be captured by using a group of sensor grids, each one very slightly (and deliberately) misaligned from the other. (OK, I’ll admit it, I haven’t a clue if or why that would work)
These are all ideas going back a fari few years now, I was wondering in the OP if any advancement towards these goals has been achieved.
I do know that the speed of producing a hologram has increased substantially to the level that living subjects can be holographed in ‘flagrante delecto’ as shown in a most revealing art show in San Francisco.
There’s been a lot of progress in technique: I’ve seen full-color wide-angle white-light-illuminated holograms which are (to me) completely indistinguishable from real objects, and I’ve also seen white light full color holograms on magazine covers and the like (Sports Illustrated had one of Michael Jordan a few years back), so it’s obviously possible to make them cheaply and on a flexible medium.
There still aren’t any that are both cheap and high-quality, though. And there’s no real method yet for dynamically creating a moving hologram (like what you would want for games). And we’ll never have projected holograms, like R2D2’s message from Leia, at least not based on anything resembling the current technology.
There’s been a lot of progress in technique: I’ve seen full-color wide-angle white-light-illuminated holograms which are (to me) completely indistinguishable from real objects, and I’ve also seen white light full color holograms on magazine covers and the like (Sports Illustrated had one of Michael Jordan a few years back), so it’s obviously possible to make them cheaply and on a flexible medium.
There still aren’t any that are both cheap and high-quality, though. And there’s no real method yet for dynamically creating a moving hologram (like what you would want for games). And we’ll never have projected holograms, like R2D2’s message from Leia, at least not based on anything resembling the current technology.
There’s been a lot of progress in technique: I’ve seen full-color wide-angle white-light-illuminated holograms which are (to me) completely indistinguishable from real objects, and I’ve also seen white light full color holograms on magazine covers and the like (Sports Illustrated had one of Michael Jordan a few years back), so it’s obviously possible to make them cheaply and on a flexible medium.
There still aren’t any that are both cheap and high-quality, though. And there’s no real method yet for dynamically creating a moving hologram (like what you would want for games). And we’ll never have projected holograms, like R2D2’s message from Leia, at least not based on anything resembling the current technology.
There’s been a lot of progress in technique: I’ve seen full-color wide-angle white-light-illuminated holograms which are (to me) completely indistinguishable from real objects, and I’ve also seen white light full color holograms on magazine covers and the like (Sports Illustrated had one of Michael Jordan a few years back), so it’s obviously possible to make them cheaply and on a flexible medium.
There still aren’t any that are both cheap and high-quality, though. And there’s no real method yet for dynamically creating a moving hologram (like what you would want for games). And we’ll never have projected holograms, like R2D2’s message from Leia, at least not based on anything resembling the current technology.
Forget holograms, we’ve now moved on to 4D holoposts! If you cross your eyes and look at Chronos’ posts from a certain angle, you’ll be able to see depth in words like you’ve never seen before; look just a little harder and you can even gaze right into the past and straight into the future! 
But seriously… Chronos, I’ve never seen the kind of hologram you describe. You mean it’s something that’s not like those holograms you see on, say, credit cards (the Visa eagle), but rather something that just looks like a regular picture… except it’s 3D? That sounds really cool! Can you describe it any further or perhaps say where you can find those things? (Except old Sports Illustrated issues, which can be hard to find…)
I’ll add to nobodyimportant’s request for more info on all four of those “full-color wide-angle white-light-illuminated holograms which are (to me) completely indistinguishable from real objects.” that sounds like the sort of thing I expected to be available these days but haven’t seen yet.