From: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat)
Subject: Re: TECH: 3D Imaging (Media Lab holography)
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 16:55:25 GMT
Organization: Advanced Human Interface Group



I'm not in the Spatial Imaging (holography) group, so this is not
totally authoritative word, but according to Prof. Steve Benton who
heads that group their current work is focussed on several areas,
basically making incremental improvements in things like color
resolution, size of image produced, time to production, reduction in
amount of data, etc.

For VR purposes, the answer is that holography is a long way off.
Today they have a demonstration "printer" that can print a single page
hologram (much the way a color laser prints a color output page).
Each image takes about 20-30 minutes to produce and since the hardware
is a definite hand-cobbled prototype it's usable about once every
couple of months.

In a more general response, it seems that holography is not the way to
go since by definition a hologram excludes the viewer.  Unlike a 3-D
simulation (or even an IMAX-type movie) there is not yet a way to give
a viewer an immersive feel in a hologram.  The trick which is used to
get this feel in graphics/movies is to make the image take up more
than ~100 degrees of the visual field.  However, in a hologram, this
just gives you more space in which to move your head and "peer around"
the object(s) pictured.

It doesn't place you "inside" the image because even though the "peer
around" is in response to you moving your eyes/head, the image motion
does not correspond to your head movements the way an HMD does.