The Vintage Laser Archive

[Eidetical]

The Vintage Laser Archive is a collection of old lasers and related artifacts from the laser industry, mostly from the last century. There are currently more than 500 lasers (80% unique), about 200 components (power supplies, plasma tubes, and emitters), and over 300 related artifacts. There's also more than 600 holograms (going back to 1966), and over 500 related publications in the library.

The Google Site I was using to store pics and descriptions of the collection was shut down by Google, and everything has yet to be ported over to a new site I own. Until then, the old site was saved by The Internet Archive and can be viewed here: https://web.archive.org/web/20201018061048/https://sites.google.com/site/vintagelaserarchive/home

 

[paul1598419]

I got into holography in 1980 using a 632.8 nm HeNe I got out of a pioneer laser disc player. Used glass photo plates then. That was the main reason I bought all the HeNes I have now, but haven't been able to get them to work in my old house as one needs to stabilize the floor and air which if difficult to do in a second story old house. Back in those days saw some really awesome holograms. The first one I saw was back in 1973 which was a moving hologram called the Kiss II. It was in the physics building at Lamar University. That was not actually a usual hologram as it was strips of a film of a girl who blew a kiss then winked at you. It was placed into a cylinder and lit from below which made it look 3 dimensional.

 

[Eidetical]

I just added a Multiplex Company hologram (who made "The Kiss" and "Kiss II") to the archive, of Pam Brazier (the girl in "The Kiss") raising a glass of wine in a toast. Also, one of the oil-filled lenses made by Multiplex to record such holograms.

"The Kiss" by Lloyd G. Cross and Pam Brazier:


"Kiss 2":


Oil-filled cylindrical lens and other parts from the printer made by Multiplex for the Holographic Arts Company (Niles, IL) in the late '70s (donated to the archive by holographer Ed Wesly in Chicago):


Hologram portrait of Pam Brazier made by Multiplex Company as "proof of operation" of the printer before delivery to HACO:


And here's "Pam & Helen", the first hologram I saw in real life in '79 at Joliet Junior College (exhibited by Britton Zabka):

 

[paul1598419]

Yep. That's just the way it looked. If one turns the film based hologram into a cylinder it actually looks more 3 dimensional. The physics department actually asked me to change majors to physics as they didn't have enough physics majors and I got good grades. I turned them down, but have since thought I could have done other things that just engineering.

 

[Eidetical]

Here's the hologram of Pam making a toast:

 

[paul1598419]

Here's the hologram of Pam making a toast:

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All of these types of holograms are made by using photographic videos and using slit holography to make a hologram of the photographs. This seems to have been new back in the early 1970s. It really isn't what one would consider actual holography.

 

[Eidetical]

All of these types of holograms are made by using photographic videos and using slit holography to make a hologram of the photographs. This seems to have been new back in the early 1970s. It really isn't what one would consider actual holography.

I disagree. It's as "actual holography" as it gets, as each slit of information (each frame of footage) is recorded as a hologram. Many were then holographically contact copied.

 

[paul1598419]

I disagree. It's as "actual holography" as it gets, as each slit of information (each frame of footage) is recorded as a hologram. Many were then holographically contact copied.

What I meant was that making holograms of two dimensional images are not what holography was meant to do. Holograms are three dimensional. Any hologram that isn't three dimensional kind of defeats the idea of holography.

 

[Eidetical]

But a two dimensional image floating in space some distance away from the recording material is certainly a three dimensional scene. The first holograms by Leith & Upatnieks were all of two dimensional imagery. Holographic information storage records 2D imagery for each page of info. Holographic optical elements are generally all made of "one dimensional" point source images. The holographic technique doesn't depend on the apparent or real depth of the image.

 

[paul1598419]

I actually saw the Kiss II hologram in person, so I'm not talking about a photo of some hologram. It is a hologram, but isn't the three dimensional type that most who have seen holograms are expecting when they see one.

 

[Eidetical]

"Most who have seen holograms" saw them in a physics department building, one of the big traveling shows in the late-'70s to mid-'90s, or in one of the handful of galleries or museums dedicated to holography in the same period. In all cases, Multiplex Company integral holograms like this have been on display along with the other types. Except, for the most part, laser-lit holograms. Which is a travesty because that is the most magical and unique type. A true "window with a memory". But I digress.

If, however, you're trying to say that this isn't a real hologram because it's a "rainbow" type (or horizontal parallax only) hologram, then I may be more likely to agree with you. Through all of my pictorial (starving artist) years, I focused on full-parallax imagery thinking that a hologram without vertical parallax was a halfogram. But even a "halfogram" is better than the "fauxlographic" displays being recently and falsely promoted as holographic.

 

[paul1598419]

I agree that some "holograms" are not actually made using any coherent light. These are more optical illusions.