Display Holography's Digital Second Act

Holography, with its stunning 3-D realism and its expressive potential, in the 1970s and 1980s seemed poised to become the next step in the evolution of visual display. Yet apart from certain specialized niches, display holograms are perhaps more rarely encountered in everyday life than they were 20 or 30 years ago. But the recent resurgence of interest in 3-D video for entertainment applications has underlined the limitations of left/right stereoscopic imaging and created a desire for more natural 3-D imagery in which no glasses are required and all perceptual cues to depth are provided in a consistent fashion. Could holography-whose transition from darkroom to digital has taken some years longer than that of photography-capitalize on this opportunity? In this paper, I examine digital developments in holographic printing, holographic projection, and holographic television, and explore connections between holographic imaging and areas such as integral imaging and telepresence.