{"id":618,"date":"2023-03-29T18:44:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T22:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1abeee9791.nxcli.io\/blog\/?p=618"},"modified":"2026-03-18T02:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:54:12","slug":"hologram-sunglasses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/29\/hologram-sunglasses\/","title":{"rendered":"Hologram sunglasses…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Working in holograms really does have some fun moments!  Sometimes you forget that, but today we’re having some fun, showing off some hologram sunglasses we made.

You may remember them from way back in the 80’s, and then they had a resurgence when a certain TV poker player would wear them during his poker competitions.  You can still buy them in a few places online, I think, but we thought it would be more fun to make our own using our Hologram Kits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Since we want holograms that can be seen in sunlight (or white light viewable), we’ll need to make reflection holograms.  We used the basic LitiHolo Hologram Ki<\/a>t with the Reflection Hologram Upgrade<\/a> so that we could spend all our time making the holograms and not setting up a special optical configuration from scratch.

For the glasses, we did go to the store and buy a few cheap pairs to play with.  We were mainly looking for pairs that had a flat lens, so that the holograms could fit flat.  Most of these inexpensive sunglasses have lenses that easily pop out with a little pressure, and then can be popped back in easily.

However, we also wanted to have some fun in-house, so we actually made our own sunglasses using a laser cutter and some 1\/4″ thick black acrylic that has a nice matte textured finish on one side (called P95).  We found a really cool sunglasses template here.  The lenses for the sunglasses were cut from some 1\/4″ thick amber acrylic.

For our first attempts, we were trying to keep it simple, which we recommend as a good way to start.  We set up the Reflection Hologram Upgrade Kit with the laser on the Reflection tower pointed down onto the Plate Holder (standard configuration in the instructions for the upgrade).  We placed a single die (dice?) in the middle of the laser illuminated area on the Plate Holder, and then placed the white card right on top of the die, where the film plate would go.  Make sure the card is getting good illumination from the laser, and that the die underneath is also well illuminated when the white card is removed.

Once ready, we darkened the room a bit (we actually make most of our holograms with the lights off, but the door open with plenty of light to see what we are doing).  Placing the black shutter paper to block the laser temporarily, we removed a 2″x3″ film plate from the box and placed it right on top of the die in the same place we were placing the white card before.  The key here is to make sure the plate is sitting nice and stable with no wobble.  If necessary, we could have used a few other dice as support in the corners to make sure it didn’t have any wobble movement, but as it turned out the one die was pretty stable for us.  This configuration, with the film plate direction in contact or on top of the object is really good because there is very little relative movement between the plate and the object, which is what will mess up the hologram.

After the film plate is in place, let the whole thing settle for several minutes to make sure there is no residual movement or stress in the setup due to the plate being placed on top of the object.  Then we removed the black shutter card, and let the hologram expose for about 3-5 minutes.

At this point, because the LitiHolo film is self-developing<\/a>, we just reached in and lifted the film plate off the die, and you could suddenly see 2 dice (one real and one holographic!).  We moved the real die out of the way, and placed the film plate flat on the Plate Holder to view the hologram, and it was really nice!  It is amazing to be able to see the depth of the die, and look around inside the hologram to see the different sides.

After the holograms were made, we cut out the shape of the sunglasses lenses.  One way to do this would be to pop out the lenses, lay them on top of the holograms, and trace out the outline on the holograms.  Then use an Exacto knife to cut the shape, cutting the film while still on the glass.  We actually cheated a bit, and used a laser cutter to cut the exact shape of the lens onto the film while on the glass.

Now comes a little finesse.  Clean the surface of the sunglasses lens so that there is no dust (you might try even using a lint roller as a makeshift cleanroom roller).  Carefully peel up the cut hologram from the glass, making sure not to touch the under side of the film and keeping it clean.  Place one edge of the hologram on an edge of the sunglass lens, and slowly lay the hologram down moving from one edge to the other while making sure to minimize bubbles.  If you’ve ever put a screen protector on your phone screen, it is a little similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And then comes the finale!\u00a0 Pop the lenses back into the frames of the sunglasses, go outside in the sun and watch people stare at you!

This process used out Hologram Kit<\/a> and the Reflection Hologram Upgrade Kit<\/a>, but could also be done with the Full-Color Hologram Kit<\/a> (which has reflection hologram capability built in).\u00a0 Similarly, these could be holograms printed on our 3D Hologram Printer<\/a> as well.

If you have any interest in getting our laser cut sunglasses and lenses, leave a comment below, and if we get enough interest, we might start making them available as an accessory.\u00a0 Also, it might be possible for us to create our self-developing Hologram Film plates that are pre-cut (laser cut) to the exact lens shape so that the whole process is plug-and-play.\u00a0 Again, leave a comment below if that is of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– LitiHolo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

www.litiholo.com<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working in holograms really does have some fun moments!  Sometimes you forget that, but today we’re having some fun, showing off some hologram sunglasses we made. You may remember them from way back in the 80’s, and then they had a resurgence when a certain TV poker player would wear them during his poker competitions.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litiholo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}