Dinesh we should start "the Porcelain Cat Group"

dannybee · Post by **dannybee** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:38 pm

on the western coast again.... "the Porcelain Cat Group" it was awesome and you could do a live color hologram demo...I could bring my fiber lens setup

Dinesh · Post by **Dinesh** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:48 pm

dannybee wrote:on the western coast again.... "the Porcelain Cat Group" it was awesome and you could do a live color hologram demo...I could bring my fiber lens setup

As I've always said, if there's interest, I'd be happy to host another one. We had about a dozen people here last time, a dcg hologram of everyone's cats all crowded into one 4x5 and some interesting talks. Yes, this time we can do a full colour. We're in the process of re-designing our lenticular/multiplex/call-it-what-you-will printer. I'm designing the new one around an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi. Just recently I got a You Tube video of an old Danny Kaye movie, did an RGB separation of all the frames and shot a full colur multiplex. I'm afraid it didn't work out too well because of the R and B frames mis-aligning with the G frames (Hence the Arduino for better control). So this time I may be able to make a multiplex movie of the event in colour.

dannybee · Post by **dannybee** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:43 pm

this way cooler than a "Orange Box"

Arturo · Post by **Arturo** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 10:31 am

Dinesh wrote:As I've always said, if there's interest, I'd be happy to host another one.

If this were to happen, I'd gladly try to join!

Dinesh · Post by **Dinesh** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:09 pm

Well, that's two! Anymore?

Holomark · Post by **Holomark** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:21 pm

I am interested, depending on my schedule and availability.

jsfisher · Post by **jsfisher** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:33 pm

Being totally in the dark, I'll ask: The Porcelain Cat Group?

Dinesh · Post by **Dinesh** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 8:16 pm

jsfisher wrote:Being totally in the dark, I'll ask: The Porcelain Cat Group?

It comes from the old Colin forum. There was someone posting as "Holodisk" who's identity no one knew (I believe his identity was finally discovered). Anyway, he kept urging us all to escape from our basements, stop wasting our time making holograms of porcelain cats and do something with ourselves. As my memory goes, I believe at one time I, amongst others, responded, "But, we like making porcelain cats!". At any rate, the name became a kind of de-facto name for hobbyist holographers on Colin's forum at the time. So, sometime around 2003, we decided to actually get together and have a holography group meeting. We called ourselves the Porcelain Cat Group Gathering (PCGG). Michael Harrison hosted the first one, PCGG1, in 2003 (as memory goes) in Texas near Lubbock (again, as memory goes). As I recall there were Michael Harrison and his wife, Colin Kaminsky, John Klayer, myself, Joy, Danny Bruza and John Pecora (briefly, he left early). As far as I can remember, that was all (sorry if I've left anyone out who was there and is reading this). There was no one famous or well recognised, just us Porcelain Cats. We gathered on Friday evening and just had a party where we all introduced ourselves to each other. The next day was filled with talks. I gave one on basic optical principals, John Klayer talked about his coke can table, I recall Colin talked about something but for the life of me I can't remember his talk (sorry, Colin!). John Pecora, Danny and some others made a dcg with film he'd brought with him on Michael's garage floor. We all got together and made a hologram on Michael's second floor table. On Saturday evening, Michael hosted an outdoor bar-b-que. We sat around a large table and recounted our beginnings in holography, amazing how many said they started out with Fred's book. There were more talks on Sunday, but by mid-afternoon people were leaving. There were a few of us still there on Sunday evening and Michael led us to a Mexican restaurant.

We all decided we have to have another PCGG meeting, so I volunteered for the next one. So, in November of 2004, we hosted PCGG2. As memory goes, there were 8 to 10 people. Myself, Joy, Danny, Bob Hess, Larry DiRuscio, John Klayer, Michael Harrison, Colin, Tom Marosz, Eric and Bruce Constable. Most of theses were denizens of the old forum and we're still in touch with some of them. Anyway, I cooked an Indian meal (for 11 people!) and Colin brought a barrel of beer that he'd brewed specially for the event. So on Friday evening, we had our meet-each-other party. On Saturday, again, we gave our talks. I believe John talked about his cave holograms, Colin showed us a method of making a hologram on a foot-square table for teaching purposes, Tom talked about how to hunt for bargains in equipment, Danny gave us a demonstration of creative lighting for holograms, Joy talked about model building using moulds etc. We also spent part of the afternoon trying to shoot on Liti's material (with little success, but that's another story)In the afternoon, we repaired to ye local pub for lunch and, after lunch, we shot the PCGG Hologram. We had asked everyone to bring a cat model and Joy combined all the models into one scene. We shot this as an image-planed dcg on Saturday afternoon - I'm including the picture of the PCGG hologram. On Saturday evening we had another party at "Casa Padiyar", as Michael called it. As I remember, we mostly dispersed on Sunday.

I believe that John Klayer hosted a PCGG3, but we weren't there for it. John, can you post details of it?

As I mentioned, I'm willing to do PCGG4. It seems that we may have enough people to start planning. I'm pretty flexible on dates, so if people want to suggest dates, we can probably find a date that'll suit everyone. I'll cook an Indian meal again, but this time, I'll brew a special beer for the event. I've had people from breweries around San Diego who say my beer is pretty good, so I'll take that as a complimentary enough to hoist it on unsuspecting PCCG-ers! And, of course, we'll shoot a group hologram. Bring a cat!

: PCGG2 holo.jpg (39.19 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

John Klayer · Post by **John Klayer** » Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:28 pm

PCGG3: I rented campers for people to sleep in and found an easy cave for them to enter and watch me make a cave hologram. Nobody came.
Hurt feelings heel. I'm willing to do a PCGG again.

Dinesh · Post by **Dinesh** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 10:09 am

John, sorry to hear nobody came. Especially after you went through the trouble and cost of renting campers.

As for this one, some people have expressed an interest, so let me suggest anytime in May. This gives anyone interested about 7 - 10 weeks to make arrangements. I can do it earlier if there's consensus on that.