--- title: Making holograms with a pen plotter | daily.dev description: A maker explores using a pen plotter to create hand-etched holograms on CD jewel cases. The key insight is that the curvature of reflective ridges determines... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/making-holograms-with-a-pen-plotter-wqzsdfqxw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Making holograms with a pen plotter | daily.dev og:description: A maker explores using a pen plotter to create hand-etched holograms on CD jewel cases. The key insight is that the curvature of reflective ridges determines... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/making-holograms-with-a-pen-plotter-wqzsdfqxw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/WqzSDfqxw.png og:image:alt: Making holograms with a pen plotter og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Making holograms with a pen plotter **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A maker explores using a pen plotter to create hand-etched holograms on CD jewel cases. The key insight is that the curvature of reflective ridges determines the direction and speed of a highlight's movement, which encodes depth information — objects further away have shallower curvature. The author walks through the intuition behind the optics (no math required), shares failed material experiments with plastic lamination sheets and waxed paper, and explains why CD jewel cases ultimately worked best. The rendering math converts 3D scene points into hyperboloid sections etched by the plotter. Results are described as magical in person but underwhelming on camera, with ongoing challenges around material choice and point-source lighting requirements. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What material works best for etching hand-drawn holograms at home? Old CD jewel cases work best for etching hand-drawn holograms. Clear plastic lamination sheets fail because they are too flexible and wavy, and waxed colored paper tears under repeated etching. A narrow, sharp pick (a straight pick from a hooks/picks set) etches jewel case plastic cleanly without destroying it, unlike softer materials. _Makers experimenting with physical crafts can find more DIY build logs like this through daily.dev._ ### How does hand-etched holography create the illusion of depth without lasers? Depth is communicated by varying the radius of curvature of etched ridges on a reflective surface, since the speed at which a light highlight moves as a viewer's head moves is inversely proportional to that curvature. Each rendered point becomes roughly a hyperboloid-shaped etch, with distance from the image plane and viewing angle determining the curve, mimicking how distant real objects appear to move more slowly. _Readers curious about optics-driven DIY builds can keep discovering similar physics-meets-hardware projects on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 17 comments across hackernews, lobsters (as of 2026-09-14). **TL;DR:** Commenters are genuinely delighted by this project, praising the clever use of everyday materials to explain the optics and connecting it to the well-known 'scratch hologram' / abrasion holography technique. The main critical note is that these aren't 'real' holograms in the traditional sense. **Sentiment:** 80% positive · 15% mixed · 5% skeptical **The case for** - The olive oil + fingerprint + phone screen analogy is praised as an especially clever and intuitive way to explain the core optical concept. - The project is celebrated as charming 'old internet'-style maker content with real educational value. - Commenters note the technique connects to a rich history of amateur abrasion holography, lending it legitimacy. **The pushback** - These are scratch holograms, not true holograms — one commenter explicitly notes they are 'very far from real holograms'. - The technique is largely a reinvention of existing abrasion holography methods documented since at least 1995. **By community** - hackernews (positive): Enthusiastically received, with commenters linking related prior art (abrasion holography, Bill Beaty's work) and suggesting improvements like piezoelectric scanners or needle tips, while one commenter tempers expectations by noting these aren't true holograms. - lobsters (positive): Brief but warm reception, with appreciation for the phenomenon and its connection to Bill Beaty's prior work. **Hottest debate:** Whether this technique constitutes a genuine reinvention of existing abrasion holography or a meaningfully novel approach. **Open questions** - Could a needle or sharper tip replace the pen for finer, more detailed results? - Could a piezoelectric scanner augment the plotter to enable closer line spacing? - Could the plotter be adapted to control oil-smearing techniques instead? - What other materials (e.g., chocolate) might serve as better hologram substrates? **Highlights** > This is "old Internet" style fun territory (along the same lines as the Tom7 fun, if not quite as deep). I felt that the olive oil + fingerprint + phone screen was a really nice way to illustrate the core concept. Especially clever because it used something common and annoying to help describe how the plotter does its thing. > — [dejobaan on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49263320) > Related, "abrasion holography", with great good success for being hand drawn: http://amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html (1995) Maybe could swap out the pen for a needle? > — [nomel on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49263333) > I've made these scratch holograms before with a compass. They're pretty fun, but very far from "real" holograms. > — [IshKebab on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49267011) > It would be interesting to augment the plotter with a Unimorph piezoelectric disk scanner [1], to enable finer movement so lines can be drawn closer together. [1] https://john-alexander42.github.io/simple-stm-web-page/Disk_... > — [femto on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49265965) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49262811) · 135 points · 16 comments - [lobsters](https://lobste.rs/s/9iliea/making_etched_holograms_with_pen_plotter) · 13 points · 1 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Holograms, From Your Plotter](https://daily.dev/posts/holograms-from-your-plotter-tpixoz0oj) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I Gave Claude Access To My Pen Plotter](https://daily.dev/posts/i-gave-claude-access-to-my-pen-plotter-ijxbecz92) · Hacker News · 10 upvotes · 0 comments - [A new way to “paint with light” to create radiant, color-changing items](https://daily.dev/posts/a-new-way-to-paint-with-light-to-create-radiant-color-changing-items-mis3r5qdb) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [This Compact Disc Shader Made in Blender Looks Very Impressive](https://daily.dev/posts/this-compact-disc-shader-made-in-blender-looks-very-impressive-xzc1fhv97) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#graphics-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/graphics-programming), [#generative-art](https://daily.dev/tags/generative-art) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/making-holograms-with-a-pen-plotter-wqzsdfqxw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Making holograms with a pen plotter","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-holograms-with-a-pen-plotter-wqzsdfqxw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-holograms-with-a-pen-plotter-wqzsdfqxw"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T22:24:00.534Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:56:34.592Z","description":"A maker explores using a pen plotter to create hand-etched holograms on CD jewel cases. 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Readers curious about optics-driven DIY builds can keep discovering similar physics-meets-hardware projects on daily.dev."}}]} ```