Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

litiholo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 123 posts

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#51

Post by hologram-paul »

detritus wrote: post #48
hologram-paul wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! The film plates are on 2mm thick glass, and the actual holographic recording layer is 16 microns, with a coversheet material over that.

Can the layers be side-illuminated? If so, could these be layered, with some compensation for angle employed to account for depth, allowing you do fake RGB? ed - eg. each 16 micron sheet is side-illuminated with a specific colour, and then three or more holographic sheets are embedded in between the glass plate and cover?

Our LitiHolo hologram film is full-color sensitive, and the finished holograms are transparent, so layer is possible.

We've started with a printer that is single-color initially to get this off the ground, but eventually we would like to have a full-color version of the printer in the future with RGB recording directly in one layer.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#52

Post by anfractuosity »

Very cool! While looking for more information on creating holograms I found this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTB2ryoWIFU (from The Thought Emporium) on making holograms using the LitiHolo film, which looks really fun too, especially the RGB hologram.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#53

Post by dTal »

tinus_hn wrote: post #23

Would be nice if this would become available as a reasonably priced service for a one off print

Worth noting that this exists already, here and there; you can get full color, full parallax digital holograms from, at the very least, Geola [0] - though "reasonably priced" is a matter of opinion! Making it economical is pretty difficult - the issue is that "mastering" is an inherently time-consuming process; you're writing each hogel one at a time, each hogel is only a square millimeter or smaller, and you're printing at a few dozen hertz max. So each piece inherently eats up a lot of time on the machine, like 3d printing. Then factor in that the plates are boutique, and that rendering all that data is many hours of computer time, and you're possibly looking at least 3 figures for a single A4 plate. That's a tough sell for the consumer market, when the lighting requirements are so stringent (they can only be lit by a single point source, from a strictly defined angle, with no extraneous light sources).

Source: I used to work for a startup that provided this service. We ran out of money.

[0] https://geola.com/

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#54

Post by jcims »

Are there any 'industrial' applications for the printed holograms? I'm thinking of these as a type of metamaterial and wondering if this provides some type of novel filtering and/or polarizing capability that doesn't exist today. Also given how this is constructed it seems like it might be possible to create holographic geometries that aren't possible with the traditional method of creating them.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#55

Post by hanniabu »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #16

Maybe this is the wrong definition but I read “true hologram” to mean a 3D image made of light, this looks more like one of those images that used to be on the cover of Guinness World Records. Edit: I see OP is the founder and this is a smaller project. Looks really cool and sorry if that sounded negative! Just not what I expected from the title.

Yeah I imagine true holograms as dynamic as well, not just a static image.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#56

Post by Const-me »

jcims wrote: post #54

Are there any 'industrial' applications for the printed holograms? I'm thinking of these as a type of metamaterial and wondering if this provides some type of novel filtering and/or polarizing capability that doesn't exist today. Also given how this is constructed it seems like it might be possible to create holographic geometries that aren't possible with the traditional method of creating them.

It depends on resolution of the printer and other specs, but potentially, this might help with R&D in areas like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_metamaterial

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#57

Post by hologram-paul »

jcims wrote: post #54

Are there any 'industrial' applications for the printed holograms? I'm thinking of these as a type of metamaterial and wondering if this provides some type of novel filtering and/or polarizing capability that doesn't exist today. Also given how this is constructed it seems like it might be possible to create holographic geometries that aren't possible with the traditional method of creating them.

One of the big industrial applications is for Holographic Optical Elements (HOE). Holograms can direct light like a mirrors, color filters, or act as several optical lenses combined into one thin holographic version.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#58

Post by hologram-paul »

Const-me wrote: post #56
jcims wrote: post #54

Are there any 'industrial' applications for the printed holograms? I'm thinking of these as a type of metamaterial and wondering if this provides some type of novel filtering and/or polarizing capability that doesn't exist today. Also given how this is constructed it seems like it might be possible to create holographic geometries that aren't possible with the traditional method of creating them.

It depends on resolution of the printer and other specs, but potentially, this might help with R&D in areas like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_metamaterial

Definitely could be part of R&D for novel holographic optical elements for VR and AR headsets, and even solar cells and how they more efficiently use light to create electricity.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#59

Post by hologram-paul »

hanniabu wrote: post #55
camjohnson26 wrote: post #16

Maybe this is the wrong definition but I read “true hologram” to mean a 3D image made of light, this looks more like one of those images that used to be on the cover of Guinness World Records. Edit: I see OP is the founder and this is a smaller project. Looks really cool and sorry if that sounded negative! Just not what I expected from the title.

Yeah I imagine true holograms as dynamic as well, not just a static image.

The different perspective images can encode a certain amount of movement, like the one of the girl blowing a kiss.

We see this as the building blocks for eventual holograms with full-motion. There has been a lot of research and ideas in that area, but still needs development.

Re: Show HN: LitiHolo – a desktop 3D hologram printer that makes true holograms

#60

Post by hologram-paul »

anfractuosity wrote: post #52

Very cool! While looking for more information on creating holograms I found this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTB2ryoWIFU (from The Thought Emporium) on making holograms using the LitiHolo film, which looks really fun too, especially the RGB hologram.

Yes, this is the same film we use for the printers as well. It is full-color sensitive, so you can see where this could go for the printers after we get the initial concept off the ground.
Post reply on HN