When and Where

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“Understanding Holograms  - Spring 2023 - from Lasers to Light Fields” is an online course beginning Friday 4/28/23. This 6-session course (3 hours per session on ZOOM) will be held at Noon EDT to enable students from most parts of the world to be able to attend. Sessions will also be recorded and available shortly after the session ends for those who can’t join at that time slot. Additional material will become available online on the day of each class at ruzuku.com. You will also be able to network with each other on Ruzuku where further questions can be asked.

 

Fee:

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The course fee is $400   

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To register for the course click here!

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What you will learn

 

This course will prepare you for the coming revolution in Digital Holograms. Optical Holograms (which require lasers in order to create them) have been with us for nearly 60 years, but it has taken until now for the technology to evolve to the point where digital holographic displays are practical. We are at the beginning of a new era of holographic imaging and this course is designed to educate you about what is already here and to prepare you for what is to come.

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For the full curriculum click here!

 

Course Instructor

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The instructor for this course is Linda Law, a Holographic and Digital artist involved in the field of Holography since 1975 - in Holographic Research, Fine Art, curating exhibitions of Holograms, teaching classes and writing about this astonishing medium. Her early days in research at NY Institute of Technology (where she was the assistant director of the Center for Optics, Lasers and Holography) exposed her to the cutting edge of Computer Graphics Research at NYIT’s Computer Graphics Lab and began a journey toward working with what is now being manifested as Digital Holograms. These days she is still pushing the envelope as Executive Director of the Center for the Holographic Arts (HoloCenter) and as the Founder of the Virtual Museum of Holography (VMOH) which is a project of the HoloCenter.

 

It has taken over 35 years for the technology to reach the point where computers are powerful and fast enough to handle the vast amounts of data processing and transfer that this requires. The internet has changed dramatically since those early days and now - finally - new displays have reached a high enough resolution and developments in Light Field Technology have made it possible to present dimensional, full-color, moving images without goggles or glasses.

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Course Content

 

For a full understanding of the many aspects of Holography, this course will educate you on the history of Holography since the very beginning with Dr. Dennis Gabor in 1947. It will ground you in the many types of holograms and what it takes to produce them - Optical Holography is alive and well, artists are working in the medium, there are facilities where you can have hands-on experience making holograms, the HoloCenter administers a competitive grant program to teach you and to help you produce images and are making it possible to see exhibitions of holograms. Understanding the creative possibilities of Optical Holograms will give you a foundation for creating content as we shift into this new digital form of Holography. 

 

Digital Holography offers new tools for creating dimensional imagery but there is much to be learned from the amazing work that came first in the form of Optical Holograms. Artists around the world have been making Fine Art holograms using lasers since the late ’60s and a large body of creative holographic images are waiting to be revealed to an audience that barely knows they exist.

 

We will also take a deep look at what is not holography. There is much misinformation out there on the internet from companies that purport to have holograms but are really using old 2D technology (Pepper’s Ghost) dressed up with the latest digital projection techniques. In this course you will learn the disparity between these faux holograms and the real thing - there is a vast difference. Other techniques like lenticular images will also be explored to clearly show the transition from stereo imaging through a multi-view display technology that has laid the groundwork for Light Field Technology.

 

There is also much overlap with the latest developments in VR/AR/XR and many of the tools being used to create content for these immersive experiences are relevant to the latest digital holographic techniques. Volumetric imaging displays are also appearing and we will discuss the pros and cons of each of these new developments.

 

In the last couple of sessions, we will explore Light Field Technology, its origins, and the advances that have been made in recent years. Starting with the Plenoptic camera and its beginnings in the 1900s, we will look at the early stages of the commercialization of this technology by Lytro Inc. and the evolution of their light field cameras. We will take a look at how we can create content for this new medium and explore the latest displays currently on the market including those most likely to be launched in the coming months and years.

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Summary

 

We are at the beginning of this journey, new imaging systems are being developed to capture dimensional content, software is becoming available that can be used to edit content in a spatial format, displays are starting to become available, new software is evolving to handle the data compression, standards are being written for data transfer and many companies and individual artists are creating new content for these displays. 

 

Who should take this course

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This course is an overview of all of these various dimensional imaging technologies that will give you a foundation of knowledge in order to fully understand what is currently evolving. It will help you to assess and make your own intelligent choices regarding the types of images you want to employ for your company or that you might wish to work with creatively. The course is appropriate for a range of students from artists, 3D animators, architects, VR/AR developers, filmmakers, producers, directors, and designers as well as company executives who want to understand the latest dimensional images to present and advertise their products.

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Full curriculum:

 

Please check out the full course curriculum!

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Questions?

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If you have any questions please contact me at lindalaw@lindalawholographics.com