Inventiveness & Innovation

Indeed, the inventiveness and innovations of the industry remain one of its strengths as several presenters showed. Jan Stensborg of Stensborg A/S, having introduced the Nilpeter Holoprint® system at the 2009 conference, provided information on the first commercial delivery and gave a cost comparison for the method which adds cast holograms on an in-line print system. A strength, but also a threat to producers of conventional surface relief holographic systems and finished product as it requires no additional consumables such as labels or stamping foil. This can genuinely be considered a disruptive technology because it provides a new way of applying holograms to printed material. A video presentation of the fully functioning system demonstrated how much development had taken place over the last year and the cost savings offered by the system. When a global company such as Nilpeter with manufacturing facilities in Denmark, USA, Brazil and India and with sales and service in 65 countries, introduces a holographic print station to its machines, the implied confidence in the technology is obvious.

The threats to continued expansion of the industry were less tangible compared with the many developments and innovations announced for the first time at this event. The two biggest printing companies in the world, Toppan and Dai Nippon Printing (DNP), shared the same platform and reaffirmed their confidence in the technology as each announced new developments in embossed and Lippmann holograms respectively. The less visible application of holographic optical elements (HOEs) appears to be offering new opportunities. Melissa Crenshaw of Ledalite reported continuing success with HOEs for industrial lighting for which the stability of embossed castings are preferred and yet Bayer, with its new Bayfol photopolymeric material, and Harman with a resurrected film based on silver halide, both reported optimism that volume recording media have a commercial future.

Growing Interest in Large Format HOEs

Such is the growing interest in large format HOEs (LCD screens, solar panels and windows) that Pawel Stepien of Polish Holographic Systems announced a new and versatile system for mastering bespoke HOEs up to a size of 30 x 40cm.

Haiming Zhang of Holoart in China provided a classic case study in the ups and downs of the holographic industry. During the years 1994-1998, many holographic companies in China went bankrupt due to overcapacity but the introduction of new products tailored to  applications in the packaging market has enabled Holoart to double its plant size and report an annual growth in sales of 25%.

DNP announced its first brand protection application based on Lippmann holographic labels, thus ushering in a new dawn for Lippmann holography after success in the early years was quashed by the relatively inexpensive embossing process. Kenji Ueda reaffirmed his company’s belief in the strength of photopolymer Lippmann holograms for security purposes. Whilst clearly aimed at banknote application in the future, they are currently available for documents such as vouchers and he confirmed that the new Oki brand protection program uses DNP’s Lippmann brand protection labels. In this case, the serialized labels are part of a system using anticounterfeit serialization and on-line databases (see previous issue of HN). Mr Ueda confirmed that his company sees further expansion into the use of Lippmann holograms for new markets such as HOEs in conjunction with LEDs. To further this application DNP has developed a holographic despeckling filter.

And yet the embossing process continues to develop and surprise. Toppan’s new Asterium product for high security applications received an IHMA Award for its innovative appearance and the sophistication of its novel manufacturing process. The addition of a true optical black to the color spectrum of rainbow holograms promises to be a potent combination for future sales.

Moreover, Tomson Chen, co-owner and founder of Sanjian Packaging Co, China, described his 10 year quest to develop an ultra-violet embossing solution. The company is one of the biggest makers of wide web holographic embossing machines (100 per year) and has developed the UV Embossing System which streamlines the production of paper or paperboard packaging materials in sheet format. Embossing is carried out using BOPP plastic re-useable film instead of shims.

Much of the material produced on these cold embossing machines is used for packaging and John Hazen of Hazen Paper in the USA presented the work carried out to create innovative packaging for the 75th anniversary DVD collection of Elvis Presley. The design team had explored a creative combination of deep, 3D graphics with registered print thus producing an eye catching product with high shelf appeal.

Alkis Lembessis of Taurus, Greece, showed how the expansion of the EU is presenting opportunities for holograms. He gave a pre-announcement of the launch of the complete set of Vehicle Registration Documents in Serbia, a recent EU accession country, in which DOVIDS play an important visual role. This clearly demonstrated that the opportunities are certainly there but the new sales paradigm requires an intimate knowledge of the client’s requirement for a complete system. The days for selling some holograms in isolation are gone. The money is with system integration.

Dr Glenn Wood of Reconnaissance International addressed the often annoying use of the term ‘hologram’ to describe optical or digital trickery which has nothing to do with the science or techniques of holography. His video illustrations began with the celebrated Princess Leia scene from the 1977 movie Star Wars® and ran through other ‘holographic imposters’, including a recent example showing highly profitable displays encompassing Japanese singing sensation Hatsune Miku who uses a synthetic voice and digital body to entertain a real audience paying real money to experience the event. Yet just when it seemed that holography’s clothes had been irrevocably stolen, the final clip showed how a refreshable screen developed by the University of Arizona is bringing holographic broadcasting closer.

Display Holography Strong

Display holography continues to surprise. Veta Bates, VP of Creative Affairs at RabbitHoles Inc in Canada, described the work being carried out to produce large scale, full-color print holography from digital content and make it available to the worlds of entertainment and advertising in addition to art. She described the making of the award-winning silver halide hologram Avatar: Neytiri with Sprite and the hurdles (technical and political) which were overcome in order to produce it and whet the appetite of the motion picture industry. She also made the point that the publicity surrounding 3D movies feeds into enquiries for holograms. This hologram won two IHMA Awards and was displayed throughout the conference.

Another perspective on the value of holography in visual displays came from someone outside the industry. Dr Wessel W. Witts of the University of Twente in The Netherlands, recognized that life imitates art in his Engineering Laboratories where his virtual reality laboratory aims at providing design engineers with a realistic experience of their creations before they are manufactured. In comparison with stereoscopic techniques, holography allows several engineers to simultaneously view the product model in 3D with each having their own personal view. The recent release of body tracking firmware from Microsoft promises even greater interaction with virtual imagery reaching ever closer to the type of interactive display envisioned in the movie Minority Report.

More large format digital imagery was described by Capt. H. Polat Dalkiran of GMC Mapping Centre in Turkey who explained some of the work he and his team have been carrying out creating cartographically accurate and useful 3D terrain maps. He hopes to get permission from his military supervisors to present more details in a future event but the results shown so far look impressive.

By contrast, Dr Hans Bjelkhagen then described how advances in media and light sources are now making the true color recording of museum artifacts viable. His examples recorded on fine grain silver halide plates impressed the audience by their unprecedented realism which is leading to the greatest upsurge in interest amongst museums since the excitement of the monochromatic Russian recording of the 1970s.

This view was reinforced by Dr Karen Harvey of Harman Technology (formerly Ilford Ltd). In a paper titled A New Silver Halide Material for Technical Holography (presented in her unavoidable absence by Glenn Wood, who was with Ilford when the company embarked on its holographic film development), she described the development work being carried out on silver halide materials designed for domestic lighting situations. This work, carried out in conjunction with Sylvania lighting and De Montfort University and sponsored by a grant from the EU, promises to yield demonstrable results in  2011. Also, a new range of film-based silver halide materials for public consumption will be released in 2011.

Dr Ruud van Renesse, who needs no introduction, closed the conference by speaking about Identifying Fake Holograms. Among the many examples of quality counterfeits he described, one of the most interesting was well executed but displayed the mistake of switching about a vertical axis instead of a horizontal one. This further indicated the need for inspectors and the public to be educated into what they should be looking for.

In closing the event, Ian Lancaster took a straw poll of delegates and the overwhelming view after hearing the conference papers was that, for holography, the opportunities far outweigh the threats.