Apparatus for making holograms including a diffusion screen at a variable angle

Abstract

A method and apparatus for making holograms includes a technique for exposing a film substrate or other light-sensitive medium to consecutive two dimensional images, together representative of a physical three-dimensional system, to generate a three dimensional hologram of the physical system. Low beam ratios are employed to superimpose multiple (20-300) images on the substrate. Each image is relatively weak, but the combination of the series of weak images ultimately appears as a single clearly defined hologram.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED DOCUMENTS[0001] This application claims the benefit of and is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09 / 595,822 filed on Jun. 6, 2000, which is a continuation, according to 37 CFR 1.53(b), of U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,143 (issued on Nov. 21, 2000), which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,267 (issued on Apr. 28, 1998), which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,313 (issued on Jan. 7, 1997). U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,313 is itself a file wrapper continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 07 / 982,316 (abandoned), pursuant to 37 CFR .sctn.1.62 a previous FWC application filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Stephen J. Hart on Nov. 27, 1992.[0002] The present invention relates, generally, to methods and apparatus for making holograms, and more particularly to a technique for sequentially exposing a film substrate to a plurality of two-dimensional images representative of a three-dimensional physical system to thereby produce a hologram of the physical ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Enables the production of a large number of high-quality, interrelated holograms on a single film substrate, facilitating the three-dimensional reproduction of complex data sets like human body parts, while conserving photosensitive elements and maintaining image quality.

Problems solved by technology

The integration of a large number of two-dimensional data slices places great strain on the human visual system, even for relatively simple volumetric images.

As the organ or tissue under investigation becomes more complex, the ability to properly integrate large amounts of two-dimensional data to produce meaningful and understandable three-dimensional mental images may become overwhelming.

Consequently, the creation of strong, high contrast fringe patterns necessarily results in rapid consumption of the finite quantity of photosensitive elements within the emulsion, thereby limiting the number of high contrast holograms which can be produced on a single film substrate to two or three.

Some holographers have suggested that as many as 10 to 12 different holographic images theoretically may be recorded on a single film substrate; however, heretofore, superimposing more than a small finite number of holograms has not been recognized and, in fact, has not been possible in the context of conventional hologram theory.

Images