Holograms on the Horizon?

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have used machine learning to reduce the processing power needed to render convincing holographic images, making it possible to generate them in near-real time on consumer-level computer hardware. Such a method could pave the way to portable virtual-reality systems that use holography instead of stereoscopic displays. Stereo imagery can present the illusion of three-dimensionality, but users often complain of dizziness and fatigue after long periods of use because there is a mismatch between where the brain expects to focus and the flat focal plane of the two images. Switching to holographic image generation overcomes this problem; it uses interference in the patterns of many light beams to construct visible shapes in free space that present the brain with images it can more readily accept as three-dimensional (3D) objects. "Holography in its extreme version produces a full optical reproduction of the image of the object. There should be no difference between the image of the object and the object itself," says Tim Wilkinson, a professor of electrical engineering at Jesus College of the U.K.'s University of Cambridge.