Bluegirl – Digital Holography by Alaric Hamacher
Bluegirl is a full-parallax digital hologram by Alaric Hamacher that forms part of the permanent exhibition of the Hologram Center at Kwangwoon University in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The work was created as part of a series of experimental holograms investigating advanced content creation workflows for digital holography in preparation for the International Symposium on Display Holography (ISDH) 2025.
The hologram combines modern photogrammetry with 3D modelling to produce a highly detailed digital representation optimized for CHIMERA full-parallax holographic printing. The project explored how techniques commonly used in computer graphics, visual effects, and virtual production can be adapted to the demanding requirements of holographic imaging, where hundreds of perspective views must be generated with high geometric accuracy. The artistic and technical background of this workflow is described in Hamacher’s publication Evaluation of Stereoscopy in Digital Holography, which investigates stereoscopic principles for the creation and evaluation of digital holographic content.
The resulting hologram was selected as one of the ten Outstanding CHIMERA Hologram Prints, recognizing both its visual quality and its contribution to the development of digital holographic content creation. Two versions of Bluegirl are permanently displayed at the Hologram Center: a 40 × 30 cm print and a larger 60 × 40 cm version, allowing visitors to compare the visual impact of different print sizes while experiencing the continuous horizontal and vertical parallax characteristic of full-parallax holography.
Beyond the artwork itself, Bluegirl represents part of a broader research effort to democratize hologram production using accessible digital tools. Alaric Hamacher developed a series of Blender-based rendering tools that automate the generation of the hundreds of rendered perspectives required for CHIMERA holographic printing. These open-source tools streamline camera generation, rendering, and data preparation, making full-parallax hologram production more accessible to artists, researchers, and students. The software has been released through Zenodo to encourage further research and reproducibility.
By combining contemporary 3D acquisition techniques, computer graphics, and digital holography, Bluegirl demonstrates how workflows developed for virtual production and immersive media can be extended into holographic displays. The project illustrates the growing convergence between photogrammetry, 3D graphics, and holographic imaging, contributing to the development of new methods for creating high-quality holographic content for exhibitions, research, and future spatial media applications.
Impressions of the ISDH Presentation of the Chimera Hologram Contest Winners for which the Bluegirl hologram was made.
