Virtual Reality Art Visualised Through Surface Relief Digital Holography

This paper proposes surface relief digital (SRD) holography as a method for visualising VR art for the purpose of presentation in a fine art context. VR holography is a new art form, which synthesizes the qualities of traditional hand-drawing with the unique features of holography and virtual reality art. Previous projects addressing the topic of VR holography have demonstrated how direct-write (reflection) digital holography can be used successfully to display artworks generated through VR art-making tools such as Tilt Brush, Gravity Sketch etc., but have also emphasised the limitations of this medium. SRD holography offers a solution to some of these limitations, namely the relatively low brightness characteristic of reflection holography and difficulties related to the preservation of artworks recorded on photographic materials suitable for reflection holography. SRD transmission holograms are significantly brighter than reflection holograms due to their intrinsically more efficient use of the illumination light. Also, SRD holography is an outstanding medium from the point of view of archivability – the fact that SRD holograms are printed on glass and the nature of the photoresist coating itself makes these holograms fully archival. They are therefore much easier to preserve than silver halide film holograms or even dichromate gelatine glass holograms, which are prone to humidity-related damage even when great care is taken in sealing them. The SRD transmission holograms presented in this paper have been printed with a high-resolution digital printer and have a hogel size of 100 microns – practically imperceptible to the naked eye. By contrast, VR holograms presented in previous studies were printed with a hogel size of 0.8mm. This leads to a visible pixelation, which constitutes a distracting feature when this technique is used in a fine art context. Finally, SRD holograms exhibit the unique property that they can be seen from both sides without any loss in quality (when displayed on plinths for example), something that substantially increases the number of people who can view the artworks simultaneously.