3D hologram can enhance military mission plans

Kristof Fekete, sales director of Holotech, an organisation that claims to have sold “tens of thousands of custom-made digital prints, many to the US military for mission planning and bomb analysis” was explaining the technology to a group of awestruck visitors at the DefExpo 2018 here.

With a casual rotation of the holographic film, the images changed perspectives, showcasing the accurate scale of a terrain with all relevant information. “When you must make evacuation plans or send in a SWAT team, for instance, the 3D hologram visualisation can showcase the reality

with pre-existing data such as satellite data, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), video footages and photographs.

When compared to 2D models, the 3D holograms show the exact height of the terrain, elevation, helping plan missions accurately,” said Fekete, whose Swissbased organisation has developed this tech specifically for military and government use, which provides more than Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) techniques.

A hologram of the 3D model is created by recording interference patterns of two laser beams – the first beam encoded with the 3D data scatters the image onto the recording medium, while the second beam provides reference for the first. When the two beams converge and interfere on the recording medium, a 3D image is created.

A wide range of 3D data sources, including aerial photos, radar and laser scans, LIDAR output and intelligence from different armed forces can be used to create a hologram. This, according to the organisation, has been deployed to the US military in theatre for visualisation of the common operating picture, battle-space awareness, mission planning, terrorism prevention planning, simulation of terrorist activity and line-of-site analysis for sniper activity, evacuation and recovery planning, damage assessment and estimation and human intelligence. A hologram of a 3D model can be swiftly executed, with archival safety.

Explaining the mechanism, Fekete said, “The 3D hologram visualisation can be printed between 30 minutes to an hour, based on the requirement – somebody might want to show aircraft imitation while another would require a topography map. A single A1 print would cost anywhere ranging from $500-1,000, which is easily portable. The hologram will show every angle of the site, enhancing planning for critical operations.

While the 2D data during planning missions requires a conversion to a 3D image in the mind, there is a possibility of a human error. But with a hologram, at a glance, you can find out which is the tallest building or the second highest to place the snipers – this data is hard to get in a 2D map.” The hologram technology is also finding civilian applications especially in the domain of medical sciences. “Information from ultrasound, and CT or MRI scans can be transferred into a hologram to plan a brain surgery, for example,” said Fekete.