Patent ID: 8325402

Claim:
A method of synchronizing a spatial light modulator (SLM) with a pulsed laser to record a hologram on a holographic recording material, said SLM configured to display N color channels 0,1, . . . N−1 of a color image in sequence at N times the SLM's image refresh rate where N is an integer of two or more, said pulsed laser producing a coherent pulsed beam at a repetition rate (LR) above the SLM image refresh rate (R), comprising: providing a computer-generated grey scale image for each of a plurality of hogels to record the hologram: creating a temporal mapping of hogels to color channels based on pulse laser repetition rate LR, SLM image refresh rate R and the number of color channels N so that each successive laser pulse coincides with each successive hogel; encoding the hogel grey scale images on the color channels 0,1, . . . N−1 according to the temporal mapping to create hogel color channel images; concatenating successive groupings of N color channel images in accordance with said mapping to form a sequence of frames as color images at the SLM image refresh rate R; splitting the coherent pulsed beam into an object beam and a reference beam: loading the sequence of color images into the SLM at the image refresh rate R, said SLM modulating the object beam with N color channels of the color image as separate grey scale images in sequence at N times the image refresh rate R; and steering the modulated object beam and the reference beam relative to the holographic recording material to interfere at the material and write successive hogels at different locations on the material to record the hologram at the repetition rate LR of the pulsed laser up to N times the SLM image refresh rate R.