Yep, hand-drawn holograms. No film or laser beams required. All you need is a hard, dark, reflective piece of plastic, a drawing compass, paper, and tape. The resulting images do indeed pop out in three-D. To get the feel of looking at the finished product, stare at this picture and cross your eyes. Note that the real holograms do not rely on this effect (they are not merely stereo pairs like a Viewmaster or stereopticon).

Although certain detractors claim these craft projects are not holograms, not-entirely-sane inventor William J. Beaty makes excellent counterarguments here. The rest of Beaty’s website is also well worth a look. He’s a man after my own heart.

Hand-Drawn Holograms

Bryan Lowder is a bioengineer living with his family in Utah. He enjoys imagining that he has hobbies such as microcontroller programming, writing, mushroom culturing, and holography.