ABSTRACT
The unique virtue of holograms is that they record and replay all the characteristics of light waves (i.e., phase, amplitude, and wavelength) going through the recording medium (e.g., a photographic emulsion). Hence, there is ideally no difference between seeing a natural object or scene, and seeing a properly illuminated optical hologramof it. This also implies that the entire original scene can still be seen when the eye moves close to the recording medium. Hence, any tiny piece of a hologram, in principle, contains a complete picture of the original scene (from a single perspective of course). A large hologram can therefore be interpreted as a collection of many single perspective views of the recorded scene. But it is more than that, because even phase information in the original light is restored.
