Anyone happen to know how to make holograms?

Question

A local pizza place would like to make a hologram of a floating pizza above the store. How could this be achieved? I am not sure what their budget is and honestly I am not sure how to make holograms at all. I am hoping there is a very intelligent person out there who can give me step by step instructions and lead me in the right direction. Thank you.

Excuse me, not store, "restaurant"

Answer 1

This is indeed a very costly and very technical process. An excellent article from Wikipedia can shed a little light on it.

Here is the excerpt on how to record and reconstruct a holographic object: (source 1)

Holographic recording process

To produce a recording of the phase of the light wave at each point in an image, holography uses a reference beam which is combined with the light from the scene or object (the object beam). Optical interference between the reference beam and the object beam, due to the superposition of the light waves, produces a series of intensity fringes that can be recorded on standard photographic film. These fringes form a type of diffraction grating on the film, which is called the hologram or the interference pattern.


Holographic reconstruction process

Once the film is processed, if illuminated once again with the reference beam, diffraction from the fringe pattern on the film reconstructs the original object beam in both intensity and phase (except for rainbow holograms where the depth information is encoded entirely in the zoneplate angle). Because both the phase and intensity are reproduced, the image appears three-dimensional; the viewer can move his or her viewpoint and see the image rotate exactly as the original object would.

Because of the need for interference between the reference and object beams, holography typically uses a laser in production. The light from the laser is split into two beams, one forming the reference beam, and one illuminating the object to form the object beam. A laser is used because the coherence of the beams allows interference to take place, although early holograms were made before the invention of the laser, and used other (much less convenient) coherent light sources such as mercury-arc lamps.

In simple holograms the coherence length of the beam determines the maximum depth the image can have. A laser will typically have a coherence length of several meters, ample for a deep hologram. Also certain pen laser pointers have been used to make small holograms (see External links). The size of these holograms is not restricted by the coherence length of the laser pointers (which can exceed 1 m), but by their low power of below 5 mW.

Source 2 actuall is a website dedicated to teaching how to produce holographic images!

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

A hologram requires a media, a surface that has the interference pattern recorded on, and through which the hologram is viewed. One cannot make a hologram float in thin air, one could *appear* to float in mid-air only looking through a window that is the hologram plate, and would be visible only to those looking though said holographic plate.

The picture in the attached reference link will show you what the limitations are.

Answer 3

We made holograms 27years ago in Photography class. The equipment is expensive. Perhaps a sign company can produce a hologram card, simlar to the kind you see on credit cards , but larger. Still expensive.