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The Future of Holograms
D3 writes "A Slate article talks about the failure of holograms to really catch on and the future of using computers to create true holographic video ala Princess Leia. The article covers some history such as the fact that holograms have been around since 1947. Lots of great geek-pop references as well."
Real time, photorealistic holographic imaging is quite difficult. For one it requires more than just on color. Holograms are produced and re-created using monochromatic light sources. Not only you cannot have multiple colors you cannot even have different shades of the same color! Another complication is that for a sizeable holographic image you'll require substantial amounts of energy focused on relatively confined space. Your fire insurance premium are sure to rise faster than USS 1701D hops across the galaxy at warp 9.
Years ago I saw some work from Stanford (Bert Hesselink's lab, if I remember right) on volumetric displays. Basically they used a crystal as a "screen" for holographic projection. The density of the crystal was better than that of air and it represented a stable medium (compared to water mist of other vapors) to project a hologram. It sounds like smoke and mirrors but it was quite impressive and you could see the hologram in normal light conditions, not only in darkened rooms.
I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible. Holograms, however, are a good basis for developing new kinds of dense data storage systems with true associate recall capabilities. Interesting work on this subject was done by groups at Caltech, Stanford, Colorado State, and UC San Diego in the 1990s. The February 1998 issue of the IEEE Computer magazine features a special section on this kind of technology.