The DI-HO System

The DI-HO 'digital input - holographic output' holographic stereogram recording system has now been used by hologram producers for over 15 years and has proven to be an efficient and reliable workhorse for the production of full colour holographic stereograms. The recently updated system, the Di-HO V3, is a completely integrated system for the production of full colour holographic stereograms from computer, video or digitised film imagery and utilises the very latest computer graphics, liquid crystal display and motion control technology.

The system consists of three sub-systems.

The DI-HO Computer graphics workstation

This is a fully specified high-end computer graphics/multimedia workstation that compliments both the DI-HO Digital video capture system and the DI-HO Mastering/transferring system. It consists of a state-of-the-art Pentium PC, film scanner, printer, real time non-linear video editing hardware and a suite of modelling, rendering and image manipulation software.

Alternatively images can be fed in real time to the DI-HO mastering system.

The DI-HO Mastering and Transferring System

This automated two-step holographic recording system is capable of recording both the master and transfer holographic stereograms.

Features include:

• A high specification, network connectable control computer.
• Advanced, application specific control software.
• A high-resolution, high contrast, 256-greyscale miniature TFT LCD panel in a custom designed LCD image projection unit. The XGA TFT LCD screen is only 23mm diagonal in size with a resolution of 1024 * 768 pixels. For small images of 20 mm the hologram resolution will be more than 1200 d.p.i.
• A unique space saving design whereby the both the mastering and transferring set-ups are cleverly incorporated into the same camera, a simple translating mirror switching between the two.
• A unique system of minimising optical distortions caused by mismatches between the master reference beam and transfer replay beam. The same reference/illumination beam and master plate holder is used for both mastering and transferring. Other features incorporated to minimise distortion include an aspheric collimating lens, an achromatic angled master plate holder with fine rotational adjustment and a computer controlled scanning reference beam mirror.

The DI-HO Optical Recombination System

This is an option for the DI-HO Mastering and transferring system. It is a fully featured X Y recombination system capable of optically recombining full colour holographic stereograms onto 10 * 10 inch photoresist square plates. Either the same image can be used throughout or different images can be mixed and matched. An innovative computer controlled masking system is also provided to accurately mask images in close proximity to the resist surface.