Wave-front reconstruction: Lensless photography

Abstract

In April, 1969, overlooking the Pacific from the crest of Malibu Canyon in Southern California, I became one of the few persons to view the world's first successful holographic motion picture. There at Hughes Research Laboratories one can look across the canyon to see a Catholic monastery, Sierra Retreat, perched majestically atop its own mountain, commanding the same spectacular view of the earth, the sea, and the sky. This contrast impressed me perhaps even more than the technological wonder I had just witnessed: the temples of science and religion separated by a canyon as old as time, each in its own way dedicated to the same quest for God. The art of holographic cinema circa 1970 is comparable to that of conventional cinema circa 1900. The few scientists who have made the first crude holographic films are the Edisons and Lumières of our time. Through the hologram window we peer into a future world that defies the imagination, a world in which the real and the illusory are one, a world at once beautiful and terrifying. It is certain that holographic cinema and television will be common by the year 2000; but more probably this will take place within fifteen years from now. Meanwhile, holographic cinema is still in its infancy; in the following pages I hope to dispel many of the misconceptions that surround it, and to provide some understanding of the possibilities inherent in this totally new way of making images.