Handmade holograms are really weird

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You can make holograms just by etching lines into a shiny surface. All you need is a compass with two points (a divider). And to be able to get your head around the mind bending geometry.

If you're thinking of making your own and would like to share it. Here's a link to my Discord:
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You can find Matthew Brand's holograms and his other stuff here:

William J. Beaty's instructions for making holograms is here:

And his youtube channel is here:

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[SteveMould]

At no point did I mention that the light source needs to be small and bright. Which is strange because the light source needs to be small and bright.

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[JollyTurbo]

That opaque square was trippy. I'm sure I've seen holograms that do the same effect, but this was on another level

[rich]

As a kid in school back in the 70s one of the other kid's brought his mom for show and tell. She worked at a tech company, i think HP, and she brought in a few holograms she made with a laser on large sheets of acetate.
I recall examining them closer and noticing they had all these swirling textures to them up close. Amazing to finally have the answer to a question in the back of the mind answered over 40 years later!

[BestCrafting]

Finally a piece of content that actually uses the cross-eyed stereogram. It has always felt useless, aside from solving ‘find the difference’ challenges, but now I’ve finally used it again haha

[gingermany]

I remember reading about this technique in a science magazine 20+ years ago. The author of that article mentioned seeing this effect in the paint of a black car where a hand print seemed to be floating where the same hand had wiped the surface with a cloth but from two elbow pivot points.

[FG]

Sitting here cross eyed watching holograms and then AHHH two Steves!

[Xaddre]

I did this on a school metal toilet paper holder like 5 years ago. (For reference I have lots of experience making this kind of art) I put my name on it like an idiot. When I inevitably got called down to the principals office he wasn’t even mad about it he was just curious how I did it. So I showed him and after he asked me to make something for the school art show. I was given sheet metal from the shop class and I carved the schools logo into it. It wasn’t my greatest work, but for me at the time it was really good. I added my signature behind the logo so you could only see it from a specific angle. Also if you vary the line angles of different objects you can create 3d images with foregrounds and backgrounds. This is my favorite kind of art as you can create a 3D landscape in a 2d sheet. I also have messed with adding some color into the scratches on the surface of the image to give objects different colors.

[fideliareeve]

I'm blind in my right eye so when you started talking about the glint in a dirty windshield or the pot lid looking further away at certain points my mind was blown. I've never experienced that and never expected it was such a different experience for people with both eyes. It's always just been a glare to me. A smear. Never thought anything of it at all. I don't usually think much of being blind in one eye as it's all I've known but sometimes I get sad there's stuff I can't experience no matter what I do.

[nenelan]

Never had good luck with the stereograms. Monocular vision really screws with that! But those holograms are FASCINATING! Just scratches and shiny, who knew!?

[JamesTM]

This makes me incredibly tempted to write some software to generate a CNC path that makes these.

*Edit:* Not 30 seconds after I posted this, you explain that's exactly how the professional one was made. :joy:

[JosephsDesign]

I noticed this same sort of effect on scratched shiny surfaces like a car or counter. There are tones of random scrapes in all directions, but when light is shining on it the scrapes appear to be in a circular pattern around the light. It’s a really cool phenomenon and I never new you could do so much with it

[jtblk]

As soon as I saw the thumbnail and title I thought “Bill Beaty described this on his amateur science web site.” Glad he got a mention! Very nice explanation in this video.

[georgH]

Thank you so much for the cross-eyed 3d images, they were wonderful! I usually use this technique when photographing scenery or objects where seeing the actual depth makes a difference.

[Krail]

Thank you for this!
I'd heard several times that if you break a holographic plate in two, both halves will still have the complete image, just limited by viewing angle. I've been researching how holograms work, trying to wrap my head around how this could possibly be true. Watching this video (and comparing it to the shine lines you see on a windshield or a pot lid) finally gave me an idea about how that might work.

[PhilBoswell]

This is how snow, or an icy road, sparkles: you get reflections off different ice crystals that your eyes interpret as matching, so your brain thinks there's tiny random sparkles of light at various distances including inside the surface of the snow/road/whatever.

[BryanWLepore]

I just tried it on an old CD "jewel box" case and it works! Amazing! So easy, yet so fascinating!!

[alzandermuller]

Very cool idea to show the 3d-ness via stereogram 🙂 loving the content!

[NonEuclideanTacoCannon]

My dad showed me how to do this when I was a kid in the 80s. He did some really freakin' cool ones. He tried to do laser holograms too, but he never got it working right.

[smilerbob]

Really enjoying the cross eyed stereogram and then without warning…two Steves appear! Some things in the universe shouldn’t happen 😉🤣

Great video as always, thank you 👍 I have always found holograms, or light refraction and reflection, fascinating. Could be my autistic traits showing through

[simonabunker]

Not quite an interference pattern, but this does seem worthy of the "hologram" name - unlike all the Pepper's Ghost projections you see advertised as holograms. Love the way you can peek around the front etching!