Holographic Imaging, by Stephen A. Benton and V. Michael Bove, Jr.

Copyright 02008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Introduction: Why Holographic

Imaging?
About This Volume
At the time of this books final preparation for publication (2007),
both commercial and consumer photography have nearly completed
a remarkably rapid transition from chemically based processes to
digital, electronic technology. Before that change could happen,
there had to exist inexpensive and high-quality electronic image capture, digital image processing, soft copy display, and hard copy
printing.
Holography is just beginning to undergo the same transformation. Because, as we will see shortly, capturing a scene holographically requires recording the directions of light rays in addition to
their intensities and colors, much more information is involved than
in an ordinary photo-and systems for capturing and then dealing
with that much information electronically are not yet fully developed. In particular, there really isnt yet such a thing as a practical
electronic holographic camera, so many of the achievements in
electronic holography have been in the service of imagery that already exists in 3-D digital form, such as computer graphics models
and volumetric medical scans.
A consequence of the digitization of photography was a sort of
darkroom democratization, in that suddenly everyone with a camera and access to a personal computer could do expressive things that
formerly required training, patience, expensive specialized equipment, and overcoming the (understandable) fear of splashing around
with chemicals in the dark. Internet connectivity enabled publishing
these expressive images to unlimited audiences with almost no delay
or cost. Holography as traditionally practiced has involved even
more patience, more expensive and unusual equipment, and longer
amounts of time in the dark-sometimes with even nastier chemicals -so making the process electronic and thus similarly accessible
to more people certainly sounds like a good idea!
Because the move to electronic holography seems not only desirable but also inevitable, and because the contributors to this book
have been among the pioneers in that area of research, we will (especially in the later chapters) look into both the theoretical and the
practical issues in making the transition happen-all the way to
holographic television! But first we will embark on an explorationboth historical and technological -of traditional holography. The
ideas, conceptual approaches, and math tools we learn along the way
will be just as applicable in the not-too-distant future when officesupply stores will stock supplies for holographic printers.
We intend to make this book accessible and useful for readers
with a broad range of backgrounds. As a result, we have to strike a
mathematical balance: were going to try to be reasonably mathematically rigorous, but well rely on trigonometry and algebra as
much as we can, and avoid where possible the use of complex numbers, vectors, and multivariate calculus. Thus although our equations
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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION: Why Holographic Imaging?

may look a little different from those in some other texts, and our
proofs may take a few lines longer, we havent dumbed them
down, and we hope our more mathematically sophisticated readers
will find our approach of concentrating on the physical phenomena
instead of the mathematics more intuitive than the more usual way of
going about these things. On occasion, well do the math both ways,
if each approach can illustrate something helpful.
At the time of Steve Bentons untimely passing, he had for several years been working on expanding into a book the lecture notes
from his popular MIT class Holographic Imaging. Michael Boves
research group at the MIT Media Laboratory had for over a decade
been collaborating with Steves group on electronic 3-D displays,
and he agreed to finish the task, as well as to extend the reach of the
material into advanced areas not covered by the course. Several of
Steves former graduate students have given their time to help with
the latter part of the project, which is only appropriate as they have
been among the internationally recognized leaders in pushing the
boundaries of holography both during their MIT years and afterwards. Michael Halle, Julie Walker Parker, and Betsy Connors-Chen
spent many hours working with Steve on organizational and layout
concepts in the early stages of this books development, and their
efforts were extremely important in helping this volume take shape.
Betsy deserves particular recognition for bringing coherence and
clarity to a collection of diagrams whose original versions spanned
over twenty years of PC graphics software, and for curating the archive of photos from which the color plates were selected. If we havent explicitly listed authors names on a chapter, readers can assume Benton with some Bove mixed in (seamlessly, we hope).
Steve Benton had a deep faith in holography not just as a fascinating scientific phenomenon or an involving craft practiced by a
community of skilled artisans, but as an inevitable step in the evolution of visual communication, and he passed that faith on to those of
us who have worked to bring this book to completion. We hope it
further passes along to our readers.

The Window View Upon Reality

For centuries, popular culture has speculated on the future of visual
communication, and has imagined that, as a matter of course, the
resulting images would be three dimensional -that they would accurately render sensations of depth, locations, and spatial relationships.
One can only imagine the collective sense of betrayal when conventional photography turned out to be flat! Only a few years after the
spread of photography, the public embraced stereoscopic photography, a feeble imitation of the glorious imaging expected from the
inventors of their day. Since then, ever better methods for perfect
3-D have emerged from decade to decade, each promising more
realistic and satisfying imaging than the last. Just when the ultimate
limitations of traditional optical methods (such as lenticular photographs) seemed to be all too obvious, a completely new technique
emerged in the early 1960s, one that promised an incredibly high
quality of depth, detail, and tonal gradation; it was called holography. Although it was invented in 1947 as a complex solution to a

References
specific problem in electron microscopy, holography actually presented a solution to a fundamental question of wave recording and
reconstructing-so fundamental that it eventually won the Nobel
Prize in Physics for its inventor, Prof. Dennis Gabor (in 1971, after
the advent of the laser had made the impact of holography visually
obvious).
Unlike photography (and painting, drawing, printing, etc.), holography enables steering light in a way that reconstructs the directions of light rays coming from a 3-D scene. That additional degree
of freedom (or of fidelity, if you prefer to think of it that way) is
what makes a hologram the most complete and visually satisfying
2-D record of a 3-D scene we know how to make, as it works with
the strongest perceptual cue by which our eyes and brains interpret
depth. The ability to produce a thin piece of material that causes light
to go in controllable directions (by means of diffraction) is such a
useful feature that holographic processes find many valuable applications other than just making attractive pictures. But this book will
largely concentrate on the three-dimensional window view upon
reality that Gabriel Lippmann predicted (another Nobel Prize winner in Physics, and the inventor of a 3-D technique called integral
photography).

References
i. Two of Bentons favorite examples from the Gullivers Travels school of early
science fiction are:
from the Fables of Fknelon, FCnelon, F. (F. de Salignac de la Mothe) (this
piece is probably from around 1699): Water was placed in great basins of silver
or gold, and the object to be painted was placed in front of that basin. After a
while the water froze and became a glass mirror, on which an ineffaceable image
remained. (Of course, like a mirror image, it was three dimensional!)
from Giphantie, Tiphaigne d e la Roche, C.-F. (1760): The chief of a remote
African tribe takes Giphantie into his home, where the sea can be seen through a
window. Giphantie, amazed (so far from the shoreline), rushes to the window
and bumps his head on something. He reports: That window, that vast horizon,
those black clouds, that raging sea, all were but a picture ... (Again, obviously
three dimensional!) He goes on to describe the picture-making process: The
elemental spirits have composed a subtle matter, very viscous and quick to dry,
by means of which a picture is formed in the twinkling of an eye. They coat a
piece of canvas with this material and hold in front of the object that they wish to
paint. It is then carried away to some dark place. An hour later, the impression is
dry, and you have a picture. The correctness of the drawing, the truth of the expression, the stronger or weaker strokes, the gradation of the shades, the rules of
perspective, all this we leave to nature, who with a sure and never-erring hand,
draws upon our canvases which deceive the eye. (Change a few words and it
sounds a lot like holography itself!)
ii. Lippmann, G. (1908). Epreuves RCversibles. Photographies IntCgrales,
Cornptes Rendus, 146, pp. 446-45 1 .