Holographic contouring by translation

Holographic interference fringes caused by rigid object motion have been explained as intersections of the object by surfaces in space. These interference surfaces can be visualized as the result of a three-dimensional moire effect between two sets of the ellipsoids of the holodiagram. The angles and the curvatures of the surfaces vary rapidly in the vicinity of the foci of the ellipsoids. It is graphically explained and experimentally verified how some translations of an object placed at a certain distance from the focal points cause contouring fringes that represent intersections by surfaces which are perpendicular to the line of sight. It is also demonstrated how this angle can be changed during reconstruction by moving the eye away from the hologram plate.