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Abstract

A novel technique for synthetic holography is disclosed. An image combiner such as a hologram comprising a number of independent off-axis holographic optical elements serves to image a set of off-axis regions to images disposed at various distances along an optical axis; this set of images comprises a synthesized three dimensional object wavefront. These images are derived substantially from off-axis incoherent-to-coherent converters, such as liquid crystal light valves illuminated with a laser. A photosensitive medium is exposed to the wavefront comprising the set of sectional images, the 3-D object wavefront, and simultaneously to a reference wavefront composed of a source coherent with that wave source used to illuminate the incoherent to coherent converters. The resulting synthetic hologram can thus be made with one exposure. The 3-D wavefront may be preprocessed to produce, for instance, a one step synthetic rainbow hologram means which may be employed to produce various synthetic color holograms or a synthetic color volumetric display.