Holographic three-dimensional printer: new method.

We propose a holographic three-dimensional (3-D) printer that produces 3-D hard copies of computer data. A new technique for synthesizing a holographic stereogram (HS) has been invented for the purpose of making accurate hard copies of 3-D objects. The flat-format, Lippmann-type HS is printed by one optical step and is ideally suitable for 3-D printer application. This type of HS has both horizontal and vertical parallaxes so that the reconstructed image is free from distortion. The principle and the image quality of this type of HS are described, and a reconstructed image from this type of HS with 160 x 128 elements is experimentally demonstrated. The systematic constitution of a holographic 3-D printer is also discussed.