Last updated: December 29, 2014


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Real holograms are on their way as scientists develop hologram TVs


Leia and Tupac - couple of our hologram favourites. Source:

  • Most 'holograms' are just illusions
  • But the real thing does exist, and it's on its way
  • Next stop: Hologram television!

ONE day soon, in a universe not very far away (here, in fact) you could have Princess Leia appearing in a hologram before you, appealing for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help.

Or you could see a hologrammatic Michael Hutchence fronting INXS again.

TuPac's 'appearance' at Coachella – when a special effects company put the long-dead rapper back on stage - sparked a renewed interest in holograms.

But TuPac wasn't a real hologram. Neither was Princess Leia (especially being fictional and all). They, and the proposed Michael Hutchence resurrection, were just projections.

Holograms are still a bit 'Back to the Future'; a science fiction dream. But they could hit your lounge room, soon.

Adelaide-based Simon Edhouse used to run Australian Holographics, a hologram company that wound up in 1998, and he still occasionally works with holograms through his new position developing software at Virtusoft.

"People use the name hologram but what they're talking about is not a hologram, it's an illusion," he told

"It's called a Pepper's Ghost illusion, it's a projection onto a thin screen. It's essentially a video.

"Holography is quite different."

There's not much hologram work being done in Australia anymore, because it's so expensive.

Real holograms, Mr Edhouse explained, are recorded by laser on holographic film.

Mr Edhouse says the really exciting advances are hologram TVs, which are being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

Hologram TV would mean hyper-real, multi-dimensional viewing - so no more blue and red glasses.

MIT is surfing the wave of a new interest in multi-dimensional entertainment spawned by 3D films.

Their Media Lab director Joi Ito told Mashable recently that the technology to create a 'real' Princess Leia hologram would be available within a year.

"The next version we're going to have is going to be about the size that you will fit inside an R2-D2," he said.
"And we'll will be able to transmit the hologram over the Internet. Within the year we'll have a reasonable-size thing."

Back in Adelaide, Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood told media he wants to use hologram technology for city planning, immersing residents in a 3D version of the city, but had to admit the technology doesn't exist yet.

So really, it's only his hope.

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